


The Book of Glam

by PyrrhaIphis



Category: Velvet Goldmine
Genre: Getting Together, Homophobic Language, Long, M/M, Paparazzi, Post-Canon, Rumors, The infamous foul mouth of Curt Wild, surprisingly fluffy for what's going on
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-11
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2019-03-03 16:55:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 53,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13345488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PyrrhaIphis/pseuds/PyrrhaIphis
Summary: Rumors that Curt Wild has gotten involved with a teen heartthrob actor spur Arthur into starting work on a book about glam rock that will give him an excuse to go looking for Curt.  Once he finds him, though, that's when things start getting complicated.This was the second "Velvet Goldmine" fic I wrote, right before I wrote "The Stars are Falling."  It's just taken me a long time to get it polished up for posting.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> As always, if you notice any inappropriate Americanisms in the mouth or POV of a British character, please let me know so I can fix them!
> 
> Oh, yeah, btw, I was experimenting this time with using Italics to express the thoughts of the POV character. Not the most successful experiment, but some of what it let me do was good enough that I didn't want to go through and cut all of it.

            The _Herald_ building was humming with the activity of the presses in the basement as the office was starting to close up.  Last weekend had been the tenth anniversary of the most traumatic concert in rock history, when Brian Slade had faked his own death on stage.  After having discovered Brian’s current whereabouts—and identity—and then having the story quashed, in some ways Arthur Stuart had taken the anniversary even worse than he had taken the concert itself, despite having been only some ten feet away from the singer at the time, close enough to see the spurt of the stage blood.

            All in all, as the previous weekend had been terribly stressful for him, Arthur was hoping this weekend might be nice and calm, a soothing chance to relax in his flat and do nothing.  Or, given what his flat was like, perhaps a chance to relax somewhere _else_ and do nothing.  The relaxation was the important part, and he planned to get a jump on it by going home and having a long shower, then perhaps listening to one of his favourite records over a cup of tea, or maybe something a bit more stiff, but not _too_ stiff.  A hung-over Sunday would not be a relaxing Sunday.

            To Arthur’s surprise, his editor called everyone into the meeting room before they could leave for the day.  “Everyone’s been working very hard the last few weeks,” Lou said, “and we’ve got this one brief respite in between Iowa and New Hampshire.  Then election season is going to hit hard, and we won’t have a good break until November.  So we’re all going out for drinks tonight,” he informed them.

            No one seemed quite sure how to react to the news, muttering uncertainly.

            “The drinks are on me,” Lou added, encouraging his entire staff to start cheering.

            The entire staff except, of course, for Arthur.  There were a lot of them being given this invitation, and Lou was not exactly independently wealthy.  Nor did the editor of a second-string newspaper make all that much money.

            So that was it, then?  Lou had cancelled the Slade story because someone had _paid_ him to do so?

            Predictable, and yet somehow disappointing.  Mandy Slade had been acting nervous, as if under constant surveillance, and Curt Wild had obviously been threatened, and possibly abducted, considering that the phone number Arthur had been given was disconnected within two days.  But Lou had merely been bribed?  Maybe it made sense, since he wasn’t directly involved in any of it, but it felt quite anti-climactic, if nothing else.

            Was he feeling guilty about having betrayed his journalistic integrity by accepting a bribe?  Was that why he wanted to spend the bribe on his staff?  Arthur decided he would believe that was the reason.  There was no way he could ever ask about it—and the old man surely wouldn’t admit the truth even if he did ask—so he might as well try to take the brighter view of the situation.

            In any event, Arthur didn’t feel comfortable about accepting a drink paid for with dirty money.  Possibly dirty money.  Besides, going out for drinks with his co-workers did not fit into his plans to spend his one day off relaxing.  Rather than calling attention to his reticence and risking someone asking about _why_ he didn’t want to go out drinking, Arthur started to slip away while no one was looking.

            He got as far as the door out of the meeting room.

            “You, too, Arthur,” Lou said, making him freeze up.  “You need a drink more than the rest of us.”

            If Arthur had needed—or wanted—any proof that this sudden generosity was because of the Brian Slade story, that would have been more than sufficient.  “I’ve got a bit of a headache, actually,” Arthur claimed, turning to look at the others.  Everyone was suddenly staring at him, making him more than a little uncomfortable.

            “Nothing like a drink to clear up a headache!” Murray laughed.

            “Don’t you have a family to get home to?” Arthur countered.

            Murray didn’t seem to care much about whether or not his family was waiting for him; he seemed to have decided it was his personal task to ensure that Arthur couldn’t sneak away and get out of going to the pub with everyone else.  Ten years ago—or even six or seven years ago—Arthur might have assumed that meant Murray fancied him, but not anymore:  he wouldn’t assume that, and it absolutely wasn’t Murray’s reasoning.  He just seemed to find it funny when Arthur was uncomfortable.  Most of his co-workers did, in fact.  Still, at least they were more good-natured about it than his brother ever had been…

            The place they were going, Al’s Bar, was next to the nearest subway station.  Its smoky atmosphere wasn’t too different from the pubs Arthur had sometimes visited in London, but the décor couldn’t have been more different:  it was all baseball memorabilia, much of it dating well back into the 1920s.  Out of everything in New York’s rich history, all the pub owner could think of was baseball?  It struck Arthur as a depressing lack of creativity.  Even the pub’s meagre entertainment facilities were sports-related:  the jukebox was decorated with baseball imagery, the one pinball table was baseball-themed, and the sole item in the room that wasn’t baseball-related was a fuβball table.  The one time Arthur had made a negative comment about the décor to his co-workers, Murray had teased him about it, asking if he’d rather have the place decorated with Elton John’s crazy old costumes, or maybe the covers of Beatles records.  Then he had laughed so much at his own joke—if it could even be _called_ a joke—that there had been no room for Arthur to counter it.  No one ever listened to anything he said anyway…

            Since it was Saturday night, Al’s Bar was far from packed.  On a Friday night—or any week night, really—the place would be full of businessmen from the neighbouring buildings who had no one to go home to and neither the drive nor the energy to seek out more interesting venues.  But those office buildings were closed and silent on Saturdays, so most of Al’s usual customers were either in their own homes or in better pubs on Saturday nights.  That meant that the staff of the _Herald_ practically had the place to themselves.  Thus there was little chance of Arthur’s co-workers being distracted enough by the other patrons for him to escape.

            Other people going out drinking with their co-workers would probably have been discussing the election.  President Reynolds was popular with the general public, but had stirred up some major enemies, particularly among union leaders, so the election was expected to be quite the contest, and Arthur could hardly walk down the street or ride the subway without hearing people discussing it.  But everyone at the _Herald_ had already been swamped by the election, and it was only going to get worse.  No one wanted to talk about it in their time off.  And with the whole office staff there, they couldn’t gossip about co-workers, so they could only complain about their spouses, children or girlfriends, or talk about the latest celebrity gossip they’d seen on television.

            Nothing Arthur had even the slightest interest in discussing.

            He had no wife, no children, and no girlfriend.  And the only celebrity he was interested in talking about was being left behind by his industry, so no one else wanted to talk about him.

            Therefore, he was sitting there silently at the table, staring off into space, and trying his best to smile or laugh when it seemed appropriate, despite that he wasn’t really paying attention to the conversation.

            “She’s pretty hot, huh?”

            The confidential voice at his elbow made Arthur jump.  “What?”

            Murray grinned at him.  “That waitress you’ve been staring at all night.  The new girl.  Hot,” he repeated.

            Was there a waitress where he had been staring?  Arthur glanced back in front of him, and saw that there _was_ a girl standing at the end of the bar, talking to the barkeep.  He hadn’t honestly noticed her.  His mind had been nine years and half a world away.  “That wasn’t…” he started to say, but let his voice trail off.  What was he supposed to say?  He couldn’t admit what he had actually been thinking about.

            “When she comes over to bring the next round, ask her for her number,” Murray suggested.  “She’s definitely been giving you ‘the look.’”

            “Uh…”  Arthur wasn’t sure quite what ‘the look’ was supposed to mean.  If he’d ever gotten it—from that waitress or anyone else—he hadn’t noticed.  Unless ‘the look’ was what Ray had been giving him his first night in London, while he watched the Flaming Creatures’ entire set, utterly spellbound.  He was pretty sure the waitress hadn’t been looking at him like _that_ , however.  It would have been hard to miss.  “I’ll pass,” Arthur muttered.

            By now, the table was quite raucous with a tale Mary was telling about the lengths she was going to in order to correct her husband’s sawmill-like snores.  Why her husband’s snoring would amuse everyone else at the table was beyond Arthur, but he pretended to laugh along with the others as best he could.

            After a little while—as Arthur continued to nurse his first beer, and everyone else was finishing up their second or third—the waitress came over and told Lou that there was a phone call for him at the bar.  The old man excused himself, and followed the waitress over to the telephone.  As soon as he was out of earshot, Lionel leaned in towards the middle of the table, a cruel smirk on his face.  “Did you guys hear the rumour?” he asked.

            “What rumour?” one of the others asked.

            “I heard it on the radio last night,” Lionel said, “from one of those shock jocks.  The rumour about Zac Sessions,” he prompted.  It seemed no one else had heard the rumour, which was hardly surprising.  Sessions was just another flash-in-the-pan teen heartthrob; as soon as he got too old to play teenagers, his career would be over, and no one would remember him.

            “Well, out with it!” Mary prompted.  “What did the rumour say?”

            As everyone else leaned in close to hear it, Arthur took a drink from his pint to hide his grimace.  He just couldn’t get invested in idle gossip the way they could, evidently.

            “Apparently, he’s a fag,” Lionel said, with a roar of laughter.

            Arthur choked on his beer.

            “My daughter’s gonna be disappointed by that news!” Murray laughed.

            “You ought to be relieved, then,” Mary chuckled.

            “What makes ‘em so sure?” someone asked.

            “He was out for a romantic night on the town with some washed-up gay singer,” Lionel replied, grinning widely.

            “Which one?” Arthur asked.  _Please, don’t say it…_

            Lionel shrugged.  “They didn’t say.  Just some loser who hasn’t had a hit since the ‘70s.”

            _Please, no.  Not with a shallow figment like Zac Sessions…_

            “Maybe he’s just researching a part,” Mary suggested.  “Getting ready to try to prove he’s a serious actor.”

            The others laughed.  “That punk can’t act his way out of a paper bag!” Murray insisted.

            “That never stops them from trying,” Mary chuckled.  “They all want to think they’re Oscar material.”  She shook her head.  “I’d rather think he’s conceited than that he’s gay.  He’s too pretty to waste himself on men.”

            Arthur knew a lot of people who would probably have said Sessions was too pretty to waste himself on women.

            “I don’t get why a young person would decide to be gay at all,” Murray commented, once everyone was done laughing at Mary’s remark.  “If they’re suicidal, why not just shoot themselves and get it over with, instead of going through all that pain?”

            “It’s not guaranteed that every gay person will get AIDS,” Arthur pointed out, despite himself.  “Besides, it’s like smoking,” he added, trying to cover for himself.  “You can tell teenagers that smoking will give them cancer when they get older, but they’ll never believe it.”

            “I’d think the sex would be painful enough to stop them,” Murray laughed.  “I can’t imagine anyone voluntarily allowing anyone to do that to them.”

            The other men at the table—apart from Arthur—shuddered and nodded.  Mary let out a quiet, grim chuckle.  “You’re right,” she agreed.  “It hurts like hell.”

            Thankfully, that made the men so uncomfortable that no one was willing to continue the topic of conversation, and the table fell into a blissful silence.  Even if everyone else would probably have called it ‘awkward.’

            They were still quiet when Lou came back over, and smiled at them somewhat weakly.  “That was my wife on the phone,” he told them.  “Seems our daughter’s come back to town unexpectedly, so I have to go.  I’ve already paid for the drinks, and one more round.  I’m afraid if you want more than that, you’ll have to pay for it yourselves.”

            Most of the others seemed upset that they were only getting one more free drink.  Arthur was just glad that he’d be able to leave as soon as he could feel reasonably certain that Lou was no longer in the subway station.

            Lou hadn’t even finished leaving before the waitress came over with a tray of beers for all of them.  As she turned to Arthur, he felt Murray elbow him.

            _You’re going to be disappointed_ , he thought, with a grim inner smile.

            The waitress started putting down another pint in front of Arthur.  “Ah, no—no, thank you,” Arthur told her, shaking his head.  “I’ve still got some of the last one left,” he added, holding up his glass, still at least a third full.  “I really don’t need another.”

            With a shrug, the waitress handed the glass off to Murray instead, and continued distributing drinks, then returned to the bar again.

            “What was that?” Murray asked.  “That’s not gonna get you her number!”

            “Aw, he’s shy!” Mary exclaimed, with a peal of laughter.  Clearly, she had already had one too many.

            By now, everyone at the table was staring at him.  “I…I should be goin’,” Arthur said, starting to get to his feet.  So long as he walked slowly between the bar and the station, Lou _probably_ wouldn't catch him leaving early...

            “Don’t give up so fast!” Murray told him, grabbing his arm and forcing him back down into his chair.  “That girl’s interested.  It’s obvious.  Just go over there and ask for her number.”

            _But I don’t want it._

            “Really, I’m much too busy to try enterin’ into a relationship,” Arthur claimed.

            “You don’t need to have a ‘relationship’ with her,” Lionel laughed.  “Just get her back to your place and have a poke at her!”

            “That’s not really my style…”  Only once in his life had he had a one-night-stand, and he’d been the one getting ‘poked’ then…

            The others continued to insist that they weren’t going to let Arthur leave without asking the waitress for her telephone number, but the more they insisted, the more determined he was not to ask for it.  Eventually, Murray got tired of the back-and-forth argument, and announced that he’d put an end to it.

            Then he rose to his feet and went over to talk to the waitress himself.  He soon gestured towards Arthur, making the waitress turn to look at him.  Mortified, Arthur looked down at his pint, studying it as if it held the secrets of the universe.  He’d have preferred it contained a way out of his current predicament, but he’d settle for the secrets of the universe.  Of course, that only made Mary start laughing at his ‘shy’ nature again.

            Murray returned with a slip of paper, on which was written the name Jennifer, and a telephone number.  He held it out to Arthur.  “Here you go,” he said.

            _I.  Don’t.  Want.  It._

            “She’s free next Saturday night,” Murray added, as he forced the paper into Arthur’s hand.

            “I have plans then,” Arthur claimed.

            “What are they?”

            “Um…”

            “Pick her up here after her shift ends at eight,” Murray went on.

            “If you’re so determined to see her on a date, why don’t _you_ take her?” Arthur countered.  “She’s not even my type.”

            “You gonna say you prefer blondes?” Lionel laughed.

            _Yes.  Particularly male ones._

            “It’s not that…”

            “You were only staring at her all night,” Murray chuckled.  “Don’t go getting all English about it now.”

            Arthur sighed deeply.  Some of his co-workers had very peculiar notions about the English.  It generally seemed best not to bother correcting them; it only made them more certain they were right.

            “I’m leavin’,” he announced, getting to his feet.  “Past my bedtime.”  Let them have something new to laugh at.  He didn’t even care anymore.  He just wanted to get away from them.

            As he was headed to the door, the waitress came over to him, smiling brightly.  _Shite, she actually **is** interested?_

            “Next Saturday,” she said, an eager little giggle in her voice.

            Arthur nodded uncomfortably.  He felt guilty now, but how was he supposed to have predicted that Murray would do something so stupid?  She was actually quite a pretty girl, with tightly bunched dark curls, and a slightly up-turned nose; why would she waste her time on someone like Arthur?

            Well, it was no matter, he reflected as he left the bar.  He could take her on one date, and then she’d see that he wasn’t anyone she wanted to date, and that’d be the end of it.


	2. Chapter 2

            Monday morning, Arthur’s world shattered.

            The tabloids were covered with photographs of Zac Sessions sitting in a bar, gazing dreamily at the man sitting next to him.

            The headlines said things like “Zac Sessions in Love Tryst With ’70s Gay Rocker!”  One particularly obnoxious tabloid’s editor thought it would be clever to headline the article “Zac’s Session on the Wild Side!”

            Arthur tried to console himself that Curt didn’t actually seem interested in the young man sitting next to him.  In fact, he wasn’t even _looking_ at Sessions at all; in every photo, he was taking a drink, or lighting his cigarette, or just staring blankly ahead of him.

            But he couldn’t deny the obvious truth.  It made infinitely more sense for Curt to get involved with a handsome young actor than for him to waste his time with some journalistic nobody.

            He had known all along that it hadn’t meant anything when Curt slipped that pin into his beer.  If Curt had been interested in him, he would have stayed.  And if he had _remembered_ Arthur, he would have said so.

            And of course Zac Sessions was attractive.  Much more so than Arthur.  And he was several years older than Arthur had been nine years ago.

            Dragging himself around throughout the week felt more like torture than living.  Arthur had finally come to understand what—who—he really wanted in life, only to have the world intervene to keep him alone and miserable.  He tried to tell himself that maybe this was some kind of sign that he should try to take Murray’s obnoxious matchmaking seriously, but he wasn’t sure he was capable of that.

            Friday evening, Arthur was listening to the radio when one of Curt’s songs came on.  “Sorry for the not-so-golden oldie, but that was Curt Wild,” the disc jockey snidely told the less informed members of his audience after the song was over.  “Thought you should hear what Zac Sessions’ new boyfriend sounds like,” he added, with a laugh that set Arthur’s stomach clenching up.  “If you want to know more about it,” he added, “I’ve heard he’s going to be appearing on Max’s show tonight.”

            Maximilian Sass was one of the most obnoxious of the ‘shock jocks,’ with almost every sentence coming out of his mouth being an insult or ethnic slur.  Why would Curt condescend to appear on his show?

            Arthur was horrified at the thought of what was going to be said on that show, but he couldn’t bear to miss hearing Curt speak.  He spent the intervening hours wishing fervently that Curt would deny everything.

            Promptly at 10:30, the lead-in for the show played, followed by a lengthy monologue by Sass.  “I’ve got a really special programme for you tonight, kiddies,” Sass chuckled at the end of his monologue, “and it’s sure to keep the censor on his toes, ‘cause my guest is that most famous fag, Curt Wild.”

            “F**k you!” Curt’s voice snarled.  The beep produced by the censor only covered part of the word.

            “Sorry, I don’t swing that way,” Sass roared with laughter.

            “Yeah, and you’re fu**in’ ugly, too,” Curt retorted.  “I wouldn’t **ck you if you were the last human being in the goddamned world.”  Arthur was starting to feel sorry for whatever poor person was trying to time bleeps to cover up Curt’s infamous foul mouth.

            “So, tell me how you hooked up with a little cutie like Zac Sessions.”

            Curt’s sigh was deep and very audible through the radio.  “Look, I came here to set the record straight, not to—stop fucking laughing, asshole!”  The snarl was half obscured by the host’s irritating laughter, and got past the censor un-bleeped.

            “Shouldn’t you be setting it queer?” Sass burbled between idiotic giggles.

            “First of all, I am _not_ gay,” Curt said very firmly.  “I’m bisexual.  Unlike morons like you, I’m more interested in who my partner is than which set of f**kin’ genitals they’ve got.  More important, I am not the least bit interested in that annoying little wimp.”

            “If they’re wimpy, that makes it easier to screw ‘em, right?” Sass suggested.

            “What would be the fun in _that_?”  Curt sounded confused.  It was rather adorable.

            “Uh…”  For once, Max Sass had no snappy comeback?  That was practically newsworthy in and of itself.

            “Which would _you_ rather f**k?” Curt continued.  “A little slut who opens her legs to every man she sees, or a smart girl who only screws one man in ten thousand?”

            Sass cleared his throat.  “Depends what they look like…?”

            Curt laughed.  “You must catch a lot of VDs from all those cheap whores.”

            “They’re not _cheap_ whores!” Sass countered.  “I don’t screw a whore unless she costs at least a thousand bucks!”

            Dead air followed for about thirty seconds.  “That’s the least funny joke I’ve heard in a long time,” Curt sighed.  “And if you meant it, then that’s just f**kin’ pathetic.”

            More dead air.  “So…uh…about you and Zac Sessions…” Sass said weakly.

            “I was just sitting there minding my own f**kin’ business when that kid came up and sat next to me at the bar,” Curt said.  “I didn’t think anything about it until he started yammering at me.  He said he’s playing a rock star in his next movie, and he wanted me to train him for the role.  Claimed he already knew how to sing, that he just wanted to know how to move and how to look like he’s playin’ the guitar.  He was bein’ really fu**in’ sweet-tongued about it.  Like he wanted to flatter me into coaching him for free.”

            “How did it turn out?”

            “I told him to piss off, of course,” Curt laughed.  “I’m not a charity.  And they’d never pay me enough to make me willing to babysit a little sh**head like that.”

            “But he was also hitting on you, right?” Sass asked, sounding desperate.

            “Maybe,” Curt admitted.  “At my age, I tune ‘em all out if they’re under twenty.  Don’t wanna end up in jail.”  **_Back_** _in jail, you mean._

            “You know, Zac Sessions is actually 23,” Sass pointed out.

            “Well, he _looks_ like he’s about twelve,” Curt chuckled.  “That’s more than enough to keep me away.”

            Arthur’s heart soared with hope.  It wasn’t completely impossible!  If he could somehow just run into Curt again…

            But he’d need an angle.  Some _reason_ to strike up a conversation…

            Max Sass cleared his throat.  “Why did you agree to be on my show if you weren’t going to say anything controversial?”

            “Because you’re the dickhead who started this stupid flap, so all the f**kin’ idiots who believe it start and stop with your listeners,” Curt snarled.  “This way I’m tellin’ ‘em myself—in my own words—that you’re full of shit.”

            “I think you’re pretty full of sh** yourself,” Sass countered.  “Everyone knows you’re gay.”

            “I’ve fu**ed more women than men,” Curt replied.

            “So you claim, but who’s ever actually _seen_ you with a girl?” Sass laughed.  “But we’ve all seen those pictures of you with Brian Slade.”

            “I told your scheduling guy I wasn’t going to talk about Brian,” Curt growled.

            “Aw, still got a torch for the ex-boyfriend?”

            “I’d like to punch his fucking face in!” Curt roared.  Even through the radio, the sound was intense and terrifying.

            There was the sound of shattering porcelain, and something metal clattering to the floor.  “F**k!  Warn a guy before you start screaming and throwing coffee cups around!” Sass yelped.

            “Never picked you for a chicken who’d fall off his chair at the first raised voice.”

            There was the sound of a chair being righted, as Sass cleared his throat again.  “So, why won’t you talk about Brian Slade if it’s not because you’re still pining for him?”

            The radio went silent long enough that Sass had to prompt Curt for an answer.  “I’ve got my reasons,” Curt said sourly.  _Just what did they say—do—to you?_

            “Maybe he’d be willing to talk about _you_ instead,” Sass laughed.

            “Probably,” Curt snorted.

            “So you got his number?”

            “Nope.”

            “That wasn’t a very funny answer.”

            “It wasn’t supposed to be,” Curt replied.  He sounded weary.

            “Fine, I’ll just get it from his agency,” Sass replied.  “Er…who’s representing him these days?”

            Curt laughed.  Hard.  “He’s with an air-headed chick who’s got it real bad for him.  Or so I’ve heard.  And I doubt she’d ever let someone like you near him.”

            “I was asking for his agent, not his girlfriend.”

            “I’m pretty sure he’s f**king his current manager,” Curt said.  Not surprising, but more information than Arthur wanted by a considerable margin.  “He was fu**ing his earlier managers, too.”  That, too, was more information than Arthur wanted, though he had suspected as much regarding that first manager.

            “Is it common in England for a rock star to have a female agent?”

            “Manager,” Curt corrected.  “And the previous two were men.  Current one’s a girl, though.  She always hated me.  Probably what he sees in her.”

            “She was part of his entourage back in the day?” Sass asked, his voice eager.

            “I didn’t say that!”  The panic in Curt’s voice was painfully clear.  _How can you still be afraid of them?_   There was silence for a moment or two, then the scraping sound of a chair being pushed back.  “Look, I’ve said what I came here to say, so I’m leaving.”

            “But you agreed to a full interview!” Sass pointed out.

            “So what?  You’re an asshole, and you can go f**k yourself!”

            The sound of a door being slammed followed soon after, then Sass started a bitter monologue, insulting Curt and his sexuality.  Arthur shut it off as quickly as he possibly could.

            The important thing was that Curt wasn’t seeing that actor.

            He was still available.

            But how was Arthur even supposed to find him, let alone capture his interest?

            He stayed up half the night, trying to think of possible excuses…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yup, I have *finally* posted the fic that gave me my eternal favorite stupid tag, "The infamous foul mouth of Curt Wild"


	3. Chapter 3

            At work on Saturday, Murray kept pestering Arthur, reminding him of his impending date.  _Why does he even care?  If he thinks he can live vicariously through me…_

            Arthur wanted to just blow off the date.  But everyone in the office went to that bar, even if only to get a quick lunch near the office, or a dinner on days when they had to work late.  If he stood the girl up, everyone would know about it.  And if she actually _was_ interested, then it certainly wasn’t fair to her if he didn’t even go.  Not that it was terribly fair for him to go when he wasn’t interested, but…well, at least it was polite.  More polite than simply not turning up, at any rate.

            He was finished at work and ready to leave by six, but he stayed at the office until well past seven.  There was no point in trying to go anywhere else, but he didn’t want to show up to the pub too early and look like he was eager.  In the end, though, he had very little choice but to show up early, and he ended up sitting at the bar with a pint, looking like every other loser in the place.

            About a quarter to eight, a young man with a blond ponytail came in and sat at the far end of the bar.  It wasn’t Curt, but there was a passing similarity, just enough that Arthur couldn’t help staring at him and thinking about Curt.  He was still staring when the waitress—Jennifer, he reminded himself—came over and told him she was done with her shift.

            They left the bar together, then she bit her lip, and looked at him sternly.  “Your friend was lying when he said you were too shy to ask me out yourself, wasn’t he?” she asked.

            Arthur cleared his throat uncomfortably.  “He thought it was true,” he admitted.

            Jennifer sighed bitterly.  “I should have known I couldn’t get that lucky.  I didn’t get asked out by a hot guy—I got set up with a hot _gay_.”

            “I’m not—I do like girls,” Arthur insisted.  “Just…not quite as much as I like men…” he added, unable to meet her gaze.

            “Great.”  Bitter sarcasm filled her voice.  “So that guy with the ponytail you’ve been staring at for the last ten minutes.  That’s your boyfriend?”

            Arthur shook his head.  “I don’t know who he is.  He just…reminds me of someone.  A…an ex, I guess…?”  He bit his lip.  “It’s complicated.”

            “Okay, I have better things to do with my night than play guessing games,” Jennifer said.  “Are you interested in me or not?”

            “Not really…”  He knew he should have looked her in the eyes to say so, but he was still staring down at his scuffed shoes.

            “Fine.  But you’re buying me a _really_ nice dinner, or I’m gonna tell all your co-workers that you’re a fag.”  She smiled viciously when Arthur looked back up at her face in shock.  “And I think they’ll believe me,” she added.

            “Do you always blackmail men who aren’t interested in you?”

            “Only the ones who’ve let me believe they’re interested first.”

            Arthur sighed, and nodded.  _I had that coming.  I should 'ave told her right from the start that I wasn’t interested_.  “Where do you want to go?” he asked, in utter resignation.

            “That’s better,” she laughed.  “C’mon, we’ll take a cab.”

            “Wait, I can’t afford a nice dinner _and_ a cab ride to get there!”

            “I’ll pay for the cab, then,” Jennifer said, flagging one down.  It felt like some consolation until she told the cabbie where to go.  Arthur couldn’t afford a place like that on his salary!

            He was going to have to do without a lot of things for the next month or so to make up for the expense he was now facing.  Starting with most meals.

            But maybe with the election starting to go into gear, he’d have to start working more overtime hours, and he’d earn a little more.  That might help.

            It wouldn’t help enough, though, he realized, as he looked at the menu.  Most of the entrées cost about $30.  And Jennifer was sitting there picking out an appetizer and a cocktail and trying to decide what dessert might go best with her entrée.  She was clearly determined to make the meal as expensive for him as she could.

            He was going to need something to supplement his income.

            Some other project.

            Maybe one of those projects he had been fantasising about last night.

            Something that could both earn him some more money _and_ let him see Curt again.  That would be perfect…

            There had been a number of times in Arthur’s life when it felt as though the hand of fate was guiding him, prompting him to turn a particular direction just in time to see something—or someone—spectacular, urging him to enter one establishment over another, to take one road or one job over the other choices.

            Was this one of those times?

            As he looked away from his over-priced dinner, Arthur saw a dainty woman with shoulder-length brown-blonde hair and a fine suit walking quickly along the sidewalk beside the terrace of the restaurant.

            “I’ll be right back,” Arthur assured Jennifer, then got to his feet and hurried outside.  “Miss Hazelbourne!” he called out, to attract the woman’s attention.

            Shannon Hazelbourne turned to look at him, her pretty face turning cold and suspicious.  “Who are you?” she asked.  “How do you know who I am?”

            “I’m just a journalist,” he told her, “but I’ve been thinkin’ of puttin’ a book together, and I was hoping I could interview your employer for it.”

            “A book?  What about?”  The suspicion on her face seemed to be growing.  Perhaps she recognised his voice?

            “About the glam rock craze of the early '70s,” Arthur told her.  “I want to speak to a number of people and see how they felt about their own roles in it, lookin’ back after ten years.”

            “I don’t see what that has to do with my employer,” Shannon said in an icy tone.

            Arthur just smiled at her.  “I know you do,” he told her.  “After all, he practically invented it.”

            Shannon’s face twisted into a furious scowl.  “That was you a few weeks ago, wasn’t it?”

            Arthur coughed uncomfortably.  “Y-yes’m.”

            “I’m not a school mistress,” Shannon said, her eyes narrowing.  “And if you think you’re going to blackmail Mr. Stone into—”

            “I have no intention of blackmailin’ anyone into anything,” Arthur assured her.  “If it’ll make things any—I’ll be willin’ to sign a statement swearin’ I won’t reveal his secret, if that’s what it takes.”  _I’ll do almost anything, if it’ll give me an excuse to talk to Curt again._

            “Even if he was willing to talk to you, you do realise he won’t say what you want him to say, don’t you?”

            “I just want him to tell the truth,” Arthur replied.  “It’s obvious he has regrets about that period of his life.  If he didn’t, he wouldn’t 'ave changed his name.  But the book will never be truly complete if I can’t get a statement from him.  It wouldn’t even need to be a full interview.”

            Shannon frowned, then sighed after a moment’s pause.  “I’ll speak to him about it,” she said, “but I wouldn’t get my hopes up if I was you.”

            “Thank you.”  Arthur got out his wallet, and pulled out a business card.  “Here’s the number where you can reach me,” he said, handing her the card.

            Shannon looked at it briefly, then stuck it in her pocket.  Without another word, she turned on her heel and walked away at quite the brisk pace.

            Arthur went back inside and sat down at the table again.

            “What was _that_ about?” Jennifer asked.  Despite everything he had told her earlier, she still sounded jealous.

            “She works for someone I’ve been hopin’ to interview,” Arthur explained, then resumed eating his dinner.

            Perhaps it was his imagination, but it seemed to taste better now.

 

***

 

            Over the next week, Arthur began to prepare two lists of questions.  One was for performers and other individuals who had close ties to the glam rock movement, and the other was for fans.  Once he felt the lists were perfected, he started making phone calls.

            First, he called a contact he had at NYU.  He explained his project, and asked if the students in some class or other might be willing to conduct the interviews as a project.  It could fit into cultural anthropology, sociology, oral history or even psychology, so his contact thought there would probably be professors who would be willing to send out their students to canvass people in the right age group and gather some data for the project.  He even promised to pass the questions on to other universities across the US and Canada.  It helped, of course, that Arthur’s contact had been rather a fan himself.

            The second call was something of a risk.  They’d have what he needed,  but…

            In the _Herald_ ’s computer system, he had found the number of a junior editor at _Rolling Stone Magazine_.  Though he was a little uncertain—how could he even be sure the number was still valid?—he dialled the number.  Once he had the fellow on the phone, he explained who he was, and what his project was, and that it was a personal project, not one for the paper.

            “Sounds interesting,” the other man said.  “If you don’t get enough for a full book, we might be interested in printing it as an article or two.”

            “I appreciate the thought,” Arthur told him.

            “So, what did you need from me?”

            “I was hopin’ you could put me in contact with a few of the performers I need to interview for my research,” Arthur explained.  “Or with their managers, at any rate.”

            “We can’t hand out any private phone numbers, but management companies are fair game.  Who did you need to talk to?”

            “Several people…startin’ with Curt Wild.”

            Thankfully, the numbers were handed over without any complaint or suspicion.  After that flap about Zac Sessions, Arthur had worried that maybe they’d be reluctant to hand over Curt’s information, but if the man at _Rolling Stone_ suspected anything, he didn’t say so.

            Curt’s manager was another matter entirely.  “You’re trying to research _what_?” she demanded, her voice laced with even more suspicion than Shannon’s had been.

            “The way people look back on glam rock,” Arthur explained.  “It’s just a retrospective.  It won’t take long.  Maybe an hour or two of his time.  That’s all.”

            “I don’t know…”

            “Please, just ask Curt about it,” Arthur begged.  “Let him decide for himself.”

            “I think you mean ‘Mr. Wild,’” the manager corrected him sharply.

            “Um, yes, I’m sorry…”  _How am I supposed to remember to talk formally about someone I’ve had sex with?_

            The woman sighed deeply.  “Tell me the truth,” she said.  “Is this _really_ for a book, or are you just looking for something cheap and sensational to sell a few newspapers?”

            “I genuinely want to interview him for a book.”   _And then hopefully do something sensational afterwards.  But not for any newspaper._

            “Hmm…I can’t say I buy that, but…I suppose I can at least pass the message on to him.  Just don’t get your hopes up.”

            _Too late for that!_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One thing I should probably mention now, rather than later on. Curt's manager is the same one I re-used in "The Stars are Falling." (In point of fact, I actually invented her for my first fic (which I still haven't posted because it needed a heck of a lot of work and it started out at 155k before I went in and added a bunch of stuff it was lacking), and just kept re-using her for a while there. She hasn't come back again since "Wild Child," though, for whatever reason.) They're obviously not in the same timeline, since they contradict each other; I just decided that since I'd created an OC who seemed to fit in, I might as well keep using her.


	4. Chapter 4

            Arthur had already started getting back some early results from the university students by the time Curt’s manager finally called him to set up an appointment for an interview.  He was also quite busy working on getting articles ready for the _Herald_ , so he shouldn’t have been feeling impatient to hear from her…but he had been.  He had been almost breathless with impatience.

            The interview was set up for the next Saturday, to start just after lunch.

            Technically, of course, Arthur was supposed to work on Saturday, but he wasn’t about to let a little thing like that interfere with getting to see Curt again.  Especially since the interview was to be held in Curt’s flat.

            Instead, the next time he saw his editor, he explained that he needed Saturday afternoon off.  To his surprise, Lou didn’t complain or even ask him to do anything to make up the lost time.  In fact, he suggested that Arthur take the whole day.

            _Am I that inconsequential?  Does that mean my job is at risk?_

            He couldn’t focus on his fears for long.  Curt wanted to see him.

            Alone.

            In his flat.

            The hardest part was trying to concentrate on his work in the meantime.

            Though it took far too long, in Arthur’s opinion, Saturday did eventually arrive, bringing with it the thrilling promise of being alone with Curt.

            The advantage of having taken the whole day off was that it gave Arthur all morning to pick out his least ugly outfit and otherwise get ready for the interview.  He couldn’t feel positive that Curt remembered his name from the phone call at the beginning of the month, or that Curt remembered him from nine years ago at all, so he wouldn’t have dared get fully dressed up, even if he still had those kinds of clothes.

            But he certainly _hoped_ that was why Curt had wanted to meet in his flat.  On a weekend.

            Arthur decided to get lunch on the way to Curt’s place.  There was a café near his flat that had decent food and served a fantastic mint dessert.  Just in case…

            Curt’s flat was in a mid-sized old building in a neighbourhood only recently altered from a low rent area to a place filled with artists, writers and dreamy university students who still think they can change the world.  As Arthur left the subway and began the walk to Curt’s building, he saw friendly older people who seemed to be hold-overs from the former population, people playing guitar on the steps or on terraces, and even a few Beatniks who didn’t seem to realize the ‘50s had ended decades ago.  It seemed a nice place, but lacked the element of edge and slight decay that he had imagined would fill the sort of neighbourhood where Curt Wild would choose to live.  But maybe he had lived there before it began to be renovated and renewed?

            Arthur paused a moment in the lobby of Curt’s building.  A mirror hung on the wall, and he couldn’t help trying to fix his hair a bit.  There was no way to make it look the way it used to—the short back and sides forbade any such happy outcome—but he would have liked it if he could have found _some_ way to make it at least less awful.  Of course, the same could be said for his clothes.  In fact, the only part of his reflection that didn’t make him cringe was the green pin affixed to his shirt.

            _Maybe it’s better if he **doesn’t** remember me.  He could only be disappointed by how I’ve turned out…_

            Trying to force himself to accept that nothing was likely to happen other than an interview, Arthur rode the lift up to Curt’s floor.  It was the top floor, it turned out, and it only had a handful of doors leading off the hallway.  Curt’s door was at the far end of the hall.  Arthur hesitated a moment, then rang the bell.

            Though it was less than a minute before the door opened, a thousand thoughts went ricocheting around inside his head:  worrying about what kind of expression he would see on Curt’s face when he opened the door, about whether or not they’d really be alone, and about just what Curt was going to say to him.  Did Curt even realise that he had agreed to be interviewed by the same man he had met in that bar after the Tommy Stone concert?  Did he have any idea that Arthur was the same boy he had exchanged such passion with after the Death of Glitter concert?

            Curt was already smiling when he opened the door, and his smile became even more broad once the door was fully open.  If Arthur hadn’t been so nervous, the sight of that smile alone probably would have made him embarrassingly aroused.

            For a few seconds, they just stood there, smiling awkwardly at each other.  Arthur was sure it was his job to say something, but what could he possibly say?  How was he supposed to focus on business now that he was in this situation?

            “C’mon in,” Curt finally said, stepping out of the way so Arthur could enter the flat.

            It was an airy flat, brightly lit by the sun streaming in through the windows.  Rock posters—a few for Curt’s own concerts, but most for the concerts of earlier artists whose work had influenced Curt—decorated the walls.  Further into the flat was a central sitting room, where a large television took up one wall, accompanied by stacks of video cassettes.  An expensive stereo with large speakers took up another wall, an amp for an electric guitar sitting beside it, and there were more records lining the nearby shelves than most people could ever listen to.  Several guitars of different types leaned in the corner next to the leather sofa.

            Everything was immaculately clean, almost unnaturally so.  Given the slight odour of cleaning products in the air, Arthur suspected Curt had brought someone in to clean the place that morning.

            “You want a beer?” Curt asked, as he ducked through a door into the kitchen.

            “Sure.”

            Curt emerged from the kitchen with a bottle of beer in each hand.  “Where do you want to do it?” he asked, as he handed one of the bottles to Arthur.

            _Is that a genuine offer, or is he teasin’ me?_   “Uh…I…”  _How am I supposed to answer that when I don’t know what you mean?!_

            Curt looked a little disappointed by the lack of an answer—or was that Arthur’s imagination?—and he shook his head.  “Guess the living room’s probably best,” he sighed.

            “Y-yes, probably,” Arthur agreed.  _‘I’d prefer the bedroom’ would hardly have been a professional answer…_

            Curt headed into the main sitting room, and drew gauzy curtains across the windows, not blocking any of the light, but keeping anyone in the buildings across the way from being able to see them clearly.  “Go on and sit down on the sofa,” he said as he was doing so.

            Arthur sat down, and tried to remind himself that he was here for an interview, not a date.  _I have to at least pretend to be a professional._   Quickly, he pulled his notepad and tape recorder out of his satchel, before setting the bag aside.  He put the tape recorder down on the coffee table, its built-in microphone facing towards the armchair nearby.

            “What’s that for?” Curt asked, looking at it with a frown.

            “To record the, uh, interview,” Arthur explained.  “So I don’t have to take such detailed notes.”

            “Oh.”  _Does he sound disappointed?_   “I guess that makes sense,” Curt admitted, then plopped down in the chair in such an unceremonious manner that the piece of furniture let out a screech of springs.  “So…I wasn’t actually too sure what you wanted to talk about…” he went on, after an uncomfortable pause.

            _Why would you agree to an interview if you didn’t know what it was supposed to be about?_   “Uh, as I told your manager, I’m researchin’ a book on the glam rock movement,” Arthur said, as he started the tape recording.  “Not so much the history of it, um, as how you feel about it now, lookin’ back on it.”

            “Huh.  I don’t get it.  What would that matter?”

            Arthur cleared his throat.  “Well…the way the world’s moved on and left us—er—the movement behind, and…uh…”  He frowned, trying to collect his thoughts.  “It’s…you said earlier that you had been tryin’ to change the world.  Members of most movements would say the same thing, I’m sure.  When the ‘peace and love’ set of the 1960s looks back on their heyday, they have a fond, doting response.  Even though they produced no lastin’ improvement on the world, they feel as though they did, um, for the most part, and they blame those who came after them for the state of the world today.  And they feel like everything they did at the time was the right thing, the best thing.”  He shrugged.  “So I was wonderin’ how you look back on your own movement.  Uh, the overall impressions, anything you’re proud of, anything you regret…”

            Curt chuckled.  “Kind of a half-assed idea,” he said.

            _It was the best I could come up with!  I had to have **some** excuse to see you again!_

            “Do you want me to go?”

            “No!”

            The immediacy—the urgency—of the response filled Arthur with an overpowering, hopeful desire.

            Curt coughed, then laughed quietly.  “I don’t know what I’d say my overall impression is,” he said, his voice rough.  “A lot of my memories are—well, I spent a lot of that time high, drunk or both.”

            “I know.”  Arthur had always flattered himself that it had only been the need for more drugs that had made Curt run off without him ten years ago…

            “Other than that…”  Curt shrugged.  “I’m pretty proud of the music itself,” he admitted, with a laugh.  “Especially considering how badly fucked up I was when I was performing it.”

            Arthur smiled.  “It’s great stuff,” he agreed.

            “As to regrets…”  Curt bit his lip, then released it with a sigh.  “A few months ago, I’d probably have said my biggest regret was…not exactly…how can I put this?”  He shut his eyes for a moment or two.  “It’s not that I regret breaking up with Brian.  I mean, that was gonna happen sooner or later, yeah?  He was a married man and all; how long could it really have kept going?”  _It went almost two years…_   “But the way we broke up was pretty shitty.  Especially considering how much of big fucking deal everyone was making about us.”  Curt grimaced.  “That was all that slimeball manager’s fault, of course.  But still…yeah, so a few months ago, I’d have said that was my biggest regret.”

            “But something’s changed?”

            Curt nodded, and grinned as he leaned forward to continue his story.  “For the past…what, three or four weeks?  Something like that.  Anyway, however long it’s been, I keep thinking about this one night, nine years ago.”

            _Oh God…I…_

            “I was back in London, and playing a special concert Jack Fairy arranged,” Curt went on.  “Big group event, lots of acts.  And after I got off the stage, I saw this boy—this impossible boy.”

            “I-impossible?  How so?”

            “More beautiful than anything any Renaissance master ever produced, with the most sweet and loving personality, and so innocent that he even made sex as pure as sunshine.”  Curt shook his head.  “No one that perfect could really exist, right?”  _I wasn’t anywhere near like that._   “Every time I looked up, there he was, just staring at me.  Naturally, I couldn’t resist!”

            “What happened…?”  _You do realise you’re talkin’ about **me** , don’t you?_

            Curt grinned.  “Best sex of my life!” he laughed.

            “I’m not sure how this is leadin’ up to a regret…?”  _You can’t mean you regret what we did together…not after that build-up…_

            “Aren’t you?”  Curt gave him a knowing look.  The tip of his tongue snaked out to moisten his lips before he continued.  “I wish I hadn’t been such a fucking idiot.  I walked away from someone who should have become the best thing that ever happened to me.”

            _Curt…_

            “Is that…is that what you want me to write in the book…?”

            Curt got up out of the arm chair and sat down beside him on the sofa.  “Is there a problem with it?”

            “N-no, not as such—it’s just…”

            “You don’t like it?”

            “I love it,” Arthur replied with far more passion than he meant to.

            Curt smiled, and used one hand to take hold of Arthur’s chin, letting the black-nailed thumb stroke his lips, just as he had nine years ago…  “Then what’s the problem?”

            “There isn’t one,” Arthur assured him.

            Moving his hand around to cradle the back of Arthur’s head, Curt leaned in and kissed him.

            All sense of decorum utterly forgotten, Arthur dropped his pad and slipped his arms around his idol…


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me apologize in advance for the ridiculous way this chapter opens. It's just that I loved the bit about the beer, and I couldn't think of a less stupid way to get there. I am deeply sorry, truly.

            Curt woke up stretched out on his back across the sofa.  He could feel the leather sticking to his skin.  Getting up was gonna hurt like hell.

            Not that getting up was an option right now anyway.  Arthur was lying on top of him, his breathing deep and regular.  He looked even prettier asleep than he did awake.

            He was actually kinda heavy, though.  Curt wasn’t used to having other men lie on top of him like this.  And yet, somehow, he couldn’t bring himself to wake him so soon.  _It’s still pretty fucking bright in here; probably not even dinner time yet.  I’ll let him nap a little while longer._

            Still, that hadn’t gone _quite_ the way Curt had planned.

            _Didn’t think he was **actually** gonna try to interview me…_

            That had thrown him off his game pretty badly.  He’d recovered in the end, of course, but…things hadn’t panned out quite the way they were supposed to.

            Since he wasn’t sure if condoms could go bad, and it had been a few years since he’d needed any, Curt had gone out of his way to buy a new box.  Just in case things went perfectly.  He’d put it conveniently on the bedside table.

            Only then they’d never actually gotten to the bedroom.

            _It’s Arthur’s fault for being too fucking sexy!  Right?  It’s not me.  I’m not too horny.  It’s **his** fault._

            But that was okay, because it was Arthur who was more at risk.  At least, Curt was pretty sure that was how it worked.  It’d be hard for _him_ to get AIDS from Arthur, given everything…or was that not how it worked?  He’d never really been too clear on it.  It had never seemed all that relevant before.

            _Too late to worry about it now._

            At least the condoms were the only part of his preparations that had gone to waste.  He’d gotten the apartment sparkling clean—though now there was a lot of shit bunged in the hall closet he’d have to deal with eventually—and washed his hair with five different kinds of shampoo to make sure it was soft and pliable.  He’d even painted his fingernails for the first time in years.

            Of course, given how fast it had all happened, he wasn’t sure how much of his preparation had really been necessary.

            But it wasn’t going to be a one time thing this time, so that was okay.

            Wasn’t it?

            Suddenly a little worried, Curt reached over to the table and grabbed the nearer bottle of beer.  It was actually Arthur’s beer, but what did that matter?  He needed a drink, and it was the only drink he could get his hands on without slipping out from under Arthur’s sleeping form.

            He’d forgotten the trick to drinking while lying on his back.  Lukewarm beer ended up dribbling out both sides of his mouth and running down his chin to pool on his throat.  “Fuckin’ hell,” he grumbled, dropping the bottle back onto the table so he could wipe the beer off his neck.

            Arthur made a quiet noise, and shifted, before lying still again.  Then, slowly, he opened his eyes, and smiled sheepishly.  “I…um…’morning…?”

            Curt laughed.  “It’s still the afternoon,” he pointed out.  Though he couldn’t quite read the clock on the VCR from his angle.

            “So it is,” Arthur agreed, with a weak chuckle.  Tentatively, he gave Curt a shallow kiss, then lowered his head again, snuggling closer.

            “Actually, could you get off me?” Curt sighed.  “I’m being crushed here.”

            “Oh!  Sorry!”  Arthur scrambled off Curt so quickly that he ended up falling off the sofa onto the floor.

            Curt laughed, until he started trying to sit up.  Then his skin tried to stay behind on the unmoving leather, and he let out a growl of pain.  “Fuck!” he shouted as he ripped himself free.  “Why the _fuck_ did I buy a fucking leather sofa?!”  He kicked the thing for good measure, but that just made his toes hurt.

            Arthur was laughing quietly, as if he was afraid of letting Curt hear him.  He’d been a quiet laugher nine years ago, too…

            Curt sighed.  “Wait here a minute,” he said, then headed for the hall closet.  Among all the crap in there was the afghan he kept on the sofa to keep warm on cold nights when he was too lazy or drunk to turn up the heat.  The thing was fucking ugly ‘cause a fan had knitted it, but it _was_ soft.  And a lot better to sit a naked ass on than leather.

            It took a few minutes to yank the afghan out without pulling out all the other stuff, but eventually it came free, and Curt shoved the closet door closed again before anything else could topple out.  Dealing with that was not gonna be fun.

            Bringing the afghan into the living room, he draped it over the sofa, then sat down on it, and gestured to Arthur to sit beside him.  He didn’t need to be told twice, and cuddled up with an exciting eagerness.

            They just sat there, snuggling up, with their feet on the coffee table, for a few minutes, before Curt caught sight of the tape recorder beside Arthur’s feet and sighed.  “So…are you _really_ doing that whole book thing?”

            “Yeah,” Arthur said.  “I’ve started gettin’ some information from former fans.  It’s pretty interesting, actually.”

            “Is…is that the only reason you…”  Curt’s voice trailed off.  He couldn’t bear to say it.  It felt too pathetic.  He wasn’t supposed to be the one feeling vulnerable.

            He felt a hand on his chin, turning his face towards Arthur’s own, which was smiling gently at him.  “I only thought of it as an excuse to contact you,” he said, before kissing Curt passionately.  “It’s just that I’ve made enough waves now that I have to go through with it.”

            “Okay.”  _The important thing is that you **wanted** me to fuck you again._

            Arthur bit his lip for a moment.  “Um…you don’t _really_ want me to put that last answer in the book, do you?  About…your big regret…bein’…”  His cheeks were quickly flushing an adorable crimson that made Curt laugh.

            “I guess that’d sound pretty creepy in a book, huh?” Curt had to admit.  Arthur had been pretty young back then.  Probably underage, even.

            “It certainly wouldn’t seem as romantic to everyone else as it does to me,” Arthur agreed.

            “So I guess…I don’t know.”  Curt sighed.  “This isn’t really a good time to…I mean, I thought this was a date under another name, you know?  I hadn’t bothered thinking up any answers to any possible questions.”

            Arthur laughed.  “I’ll always be happy to come back for more,” he promised, caressing Curt’s chest with one hand.

            They sat there in silence for a few minutes, but Curt felt like something was gnawing at him.  “So…who else are you talking to for this book?”

            “So far, uh, I’ve borrowed some university students—through their professors, of course!—to survey fans, and I’ve, um, contacted the managers of a few other American musicians.  Not heard back from the musicians yet, though.”  Arthur sighed deeply.  “I know I should probably go back to England and interview people for it, but…even if I could get the time off work and could afford the trip, I don’t think I’d have the strength to go back.  Not—not by myself.”  _Is he hoping I’ll offer to go with him?  Is that what I’m supposed to say?_   “I’ll probably just call Malcolm and get his answers over the phone, then ask him to collect some answers from everyone else.  He’s still in touch with a lot of people from the old days.”

            “The old days?” Curt repeated.  “Fuck; it was only ten years ago!”

            “I know, but—”

            “Anyway, Malcolm who?  Who is this guy to you?”

            “Jealous?”  Arthur laughed, with a flattered yet nervous smile, so like the ones he had displayed on that rooftop nine years ago…

            “Just answer the question.”

            “I’d think you know him, too,” Arthur told him.  “The lead singer from the Flaming Creatures?”

            “Oh, yeah, him.  Right.”  Curt had forgotten all about those guys.  “He’s not an ex or something, is he?”

            “Er…sort of.”  Arthur cleared his throat uncomfortably.  “You…uh…remember when you asked if my parents would be worried about me?”

            “Yeah, and you said you didn’t live at home anymore.  You were staying with friends or something.”

            Arthur nodded.  “I didn’t like to admit I’d been picked up by a whole band…”

            “Fucking hell.  You were screwing all four of them?”  _Shit, I thought I was your first…_

            “It…wasn’t quite so…um…that’s not quite how I’d describe it…”

            “But you were.”

            “Basically,” Arthur sighed, averting his eyes.

            “ _And_ you were living with them?”

            “Yeah.”

            “Shit.”  Curt sighed.  “Anything else I oughta know?”

            Arthur shook his head.  “That…that was the bulk of my sex life right there…” he said, with a nervous attempt at a laugh.  “I, um, left the country not long after the band broke up, and Americans don’t seem to find me attractive.”

            “I think you’re fucking sexy,” Curt assured him, turning his face back so he could kiss him.  “You’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen.”

            “Curt…”

            Arthur fixed him with an intense stare that filled Curt with all the desires that should have been quenched by their recent sex.  All he could think of, suddenly, was the need to take Arthur into his arms and kiss him, pulling him closer and closer, until they were both full with the longing to resume their frantic rutting.

            Unfortunately, they hadn’t been kissing long before the phone started ringing.  Arthur started to pull away, but Curt wasn’t having any of that.  Let the fucking thing ring.  Who could possibly want to talk to him that was more important than this?  Besides, since investing in one, he had taken to letting the answering machine take all his calls.

            Soon enough, the thing was playing out a tinny recording of his voice saying that real callers could leave a message and that tabloid vultures could piss off.  This was, naturally enough, followed by Alicia’s voice berating him for his message.  _Shit_.

            Curt pulled out of the kiss.  “Sorry,” he sighed.  “My manager,” he explained, before heading over to pick up the phone and turn off the machine.  “All right, stop bitching,” he said into the receiver.  “What’s wrong now?”

            “Have you turned off the machine?”

            “Yeah.”

            “Good.  Mostly, I thought I’d call and rescue you from that ‘interview.’  I’m sure he’s still pestering you…”

            _You fucking bitch!_   “Pestering is not the right word,” Curt growled into the phone.  “If that’s all you’re wasting my time with—”

            “No, I have some business, too.  Important business.”

            “It better be fucking important, after you interrupted us like this!”  Nothing killed a semi like a phone call from his manager.

            “Honestly, Curt, you need to stop swearing at people all the time,” Alicia sighed.

            “Why the fuck should I do that?”

            “Yes, yes.  All right, listen.  A pretty important executive from the studio called me, and they backed up everything Sessions and his agent were saying.  They really do want to hire you to be his coach for the movie.”

            “Fuck that!” Curt snarled.  “I’m not coming anywhere near that annoying runt!”

            “Curt, they’re willing to pay you a _lot_ of money,” Alicia said sternly.  “They were throwing around a flat fee of a quarter million dollars.  And if that’s their opening bid, then they’d go a _lot_ higher.”

            “Do you have any idea what that little shithead said to me?” Curt snapped.  “He said his character was _based_ on me!”

            “Yes, I know.  The agent and the studio both confirmed it.”

            “For one thing, I am nowhere _near_ fucking old enough to be the subject of a goddamned movie!  And more important, you know what else that means?”

            “I…”

            “If _his_ character is based on _me_ , then who’s his co-star’s character based on?”

            “Well, Brian Slade, of course, but—”

            “And that is _exactly_ why I’m not having one fucking thing to do with it!” Curt exclaimed.  “In fact, look it up.  Can I sue them if they make the movie?”

            “Since they’re not using your name, no, I don’t think you can.”

            Curt sighed.  “Yeah, that woulda been too easy.  But don’t you dare let them license any of my songs for it!”

            “Wouldn’t you rather get paid for it, instead of letting someone else profit from it?” Alicia countered.  “If they’re going to make it anyway…”

            “I’d rather have my integrity than their money.”

            “And that’s exactly why you’re not working much anymore,” Alicia sighed.

            “Or maybe that’s ‘cause my manager’s not doing her job.”

            “I can’t change the market to suit your refusal to change with the times!” Alicia shrieked.  _God, her voice is piercing.  Like a fucking ice pick._

            “Yeah, yeah,” Curt grumbled.  “Look, I’m in the middle of something important right now.  I don’t have time for the usual argument.  Why don’t you spend your time thinking of a way to get me more gigs, instead of wasting time with that fucking movie studio?”

            Alicia started a high-pitched, frenzied response, so Curt just hung up on her.  Then he took the phone off the hook, and disconnected the receiver from the base so they wouldn’t have to hear the annoying off-the-hook noise.

            As he sat back down beside Arthur, Curt sighed deeply.  “Okay, I know what my real regret is now,” he said.

            “What’s that?”

            “I regret letting that slimeball make such a spectacle of what was going on between me and Brian,” Curt said.  “Big time.”

            “I suppose I can see how that would be…uncomfortable…now…” Arthur said, his voice wavering slightly.

            Curt looked at him.  Arthur’s forehead was lined, and there was an uneasy look in his eyes.  “You don’t like that answer?”

            “Well…from your perspective, I…it’s a good answer.  It’s just…that publicity—that _acceptance_ —it was really important to me—to the fans who….who…”

            “Yeah, I get it,” Curt sighed, stroking his hair gently.  He suddenly felt pretty fucking awkward about all this.  _If Arthur was only able to accept his own sexuality back then ‘cause of us…doesn’t that make me sleeping with him somehow kinda twisted?_

            They sat there in an uncomfortable silence for several minutes, until the sound of a church bell outside barely lilted through the closed windows.  _Only four o’clock?_   That seemed oddly early.

            There was something else bothering Curt.  “Hey, look, if you’re…if you’re really going through with this…you’re gonna need to talk to Brian.”  Not that he relished the idea of letting Arthur come anywhere near Brian.  Or rather, letting Brian come anywhere near Arthur.  No matter how much he might claim to be through with men…one look at someone as pretty as Arthur would probably change his mind damned fast.

            “I did speak to his manager about it,” Arthur said, with a weak sound that might have been intended to be a chuckle, “but, um, she didn’t seem inclined to let me see him.  For that matter, she was rather less than pleased that I even knew the truth about who he really was.”

            “She would be,” Curt laughed.  “Well, don’t worry too much about it.  She’ll back down.”  _It’ll be easy to arrange._

            “I’m not so sure of that,” Arthur sighed.  “But I suppose I could always print the truth about his name change as proof that he regretted everything,” he chuckled.

            “That is not a good idea.”  _Not even a little bit._

            Arthur looked at him piercingly.  “What did they do to you?”

            “I don’t wanna talk about it.”

            “But—”

            “I said I don’t wanna talk about it!” Curt snapped.

            “All right.  I’m sorry.”

            Curt lifted an eyebrow for a moment, then laughed.  _At least it’s easy to win an argument with him!_   “C’mon, let’s stop wasting time,” he said, leaning in for another kiss.  “We’ve got time for a quick one before dinner.”

            Arthur smiled widely before returning the kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Regarding whether or not Arthur was underage at the Death of Glitter concert, according to the screenplay, Arthur is 28 in 1984, which makes him 19 in 1975, when the concert took place, so in the US he would totally have been of age. But the way the law was structured in England at the time, he would have been underage. (That law was changed in 2000. Yes, I actually looked this up once.) I realize that's utterly irrelevant to everything and everyone, but I just felt like sharing.


	6. Chapter 6

            After the best weekend ever, going back to work was more of a chore than usual.

            When Arthur left Curt’s flat on Monday morning, Curt had said they’d have to take things slowly.  “I’m still getting followed by fucking paparazzi every time I leave my apartment,” he explained, “and if they see you coming into the building too often, they might guess why.  Once they calm down and start keeping the hell away from me, then we’ll be able to see each other more often.  But they can’t watch my phone line, so we can talk, anyway.”

            Of course, returning to work wasn’t even the worst part.  The real worst part was going back to his sparse, cave-like flat after the spacious, well-lit comfort of Curt’s flat.  Bare concrete walls, only an ill-maintained radiator to warm the place, no windows, and the faint odour of mildew perpetually lingering in the air.  How was he supposed to handle cramming himself back into that horrible place after remembering that there were better ways to live?

            He tried to distract himself by working on his book.  He took the answer packets that he had already received to one of the nearby cafés in order to go over the results and make some notes, but there was only so much that could do for him.

            Then there was the tape.  They had been too busy over the weekend to get back to having the actual interview—and it would be pretty awkward once they did, now that the situation had changed so much—but Curt had given him at least a few answers that might be useful.  Possibly.  Besides, he was going to have to get used to taking shorthand notes to transcribe an interview off an audio cassette, right?

            One evening, Arthur sat down at his desk, rewound the tape, and prepared to transcribe it as it played.  He’d forgotten just how little was actually said before they broke off for more stimulating activities.

            As the recording fell silent, interrupted only by the occasional sound of shifting springs, or the suction of lips parting briefly, Arthur tried to remember if they had said anything useful afterwards, before the tape ran out.  He couldn’t even recall hearing the recorder shut off…

            He was distracted—and somewhat mortified—when heavy breathing, grunting and moaning started coming out of the tape player.  _Did we really make **that** much noise…?_

            Arthur was just reaching to turn off the tape when the recording played back the first time Curt moaned his name.  Something about the sound left him spellbound, his hand halfway to the player.  Then, slow and tentative, his hand retreated, and he allowed the recording to play on.

            It wasn’t until he heard the astonishingly uncomfortable sound of his own cry of delight at the moment of climax that Arthur realized he had been jotting down little notes, keeping count of how many times they had moaned each other’s name.  A quick count revealed that Arthur had called out Curt’s name almost twice as many times as Curt had called his, but since Curt had started it, he still felt all right about that.

            Hastily, he fast-forwarded the tape until they woke up from their little nap.  There _had_ actually been a bit of useful information in the brief conversation that followed, but not really enough to make up for the discomfort of listening to an audio recording of himself having sex.

            Arthur recorded over the entire tape as soon as he was sure he’d correctly transcribed the initial conversation.  The thought of anyone else hearing that recording…

 

***

 

            There were advantages to having one’s celebrity status renewed, even if it had to be in such a shitty way.  Sure, it sucked that he was now being followed around by vultures.  And that the tabloids were desperate to prove he was fucking someone he couldn’t stand.

            But it meant that no one tried to stop him from going places.  Places they wouldn’t have let him into before this crap started.

            Like backstage at award shows he wasn’t involved in.

            Curt just walked up to the stage door like he owned the place—he was good at that, after all—and no one questioned what he was doing there.  He wasn’t being given any awards, and he sure as hell hadn’t been asked to present any, or to perform any numbers between the presentations, but no one seemed to care.

            The people who were there to perform during the show all had their names up on signs on their dressing rooms, so it was easy to find the motherfucker.

            Curt didn’t bother to knock.  He just opened the door and went on in.

            It was one of those dressing rooms with a little screen closing off half of it.  Those always used to be convenient for a quick blow job.  _If that’s what’s going on in here right now, I think I’m gonna puke._

            “You already got the hairspray?”

            “What, you use the fake voice even when it’s just you and Shannon?” Curt asked, a bit surprised.  He’d have thought it’d be hard to maintain that 24/7.

            Something crashed to the floor.  “What the bloody hell are you doing here?!”  Now _that_ was the voice Curt had been expecting to hear.

            Brian—no, ‘Tommy’—came around the side of the screen, wearing a make-up bib over his sickeningly white suit, his bleached hair only halfway formed into that ugly pompadour.  He glared at Curt with a ferocity that he had rarely ever shown in the past.  Today, that just made Curt laugh.

            “How did you even get _in_ here?  What happened to the security?”

            “Hadn’t you heard?  I’m famous again.”  _Though it hurts to admit I’d pretty much faded from view until recently…_

            ‘Tommy’ snorted derisively.  “And I’m supposed to be impressed by your movie idol boyfriend?”

            “I’m not fucking that little shithead,” Curt told him, disgusted that someone who used to know him so well would so misjudge him.

            A more genuine laugh.  “That much was obvious.  You weren’t looking at him in even one of those photos.”

            Curt sighed.  _He’s just trying to wind me up?  Probably wants me to make a scene so he can call security and get me thrown out in proper style._

            “But you don’t really think anyone’s going to believe your claims that he just wants you to help him with a role, do you?”

            “It’s true,” Curt said sternly.  “The studio’s actually trying to hire me to coach him.”  He sighed.  “I wanted to talk about this second, but I guess since it’s come up, I may as well start with it.”

            “With what?”  With that suspicious squint on his face, he almost still looked like himself.  Almost.

            “That movie,” Curt said, fetching the rolled-up script out of his coat pocket.  “That kid wants me to coach him ‘cause his character’s based on me.”

            Tommy laughed viciously.  “That’s a new depth of being washed-up, even for you.”

            “You’re in there, too,” Curt informed him, shoving the script at him.  “It’s about us.”

            That made the humor fade away from his face.  “So?  What would I care?  I’ve got a new career, unstained by you and all your shit.”

            Curt shrugged.  “You really think you’re okay with this?  It’s accurate.  _Really_ fucking accurate.  To the point that most of it’s direct quotes.”

            “And how would they have become privy to so many secret words?” Tommy asked, Brian’s voice mocking out of his altered face.

            “Check the title page, where it lists the screenwriters,” Curt said, glad to be the one who had something to be smug about for a change.

            “I don’t know the names of screenwriters.  It’ll be meaningless to me.”

            “Oh, the first name’ll be meaningless,” Curt agreed, “but not the second one.  Go on.  Look for yourself.”

            For at least thirty seconds, he just stood there, staring at Curt suspiciously.  Then, slowly, his hands began to tremble.  Quaking like an old man’s hands, hands that can’t be held still.  The shaking only stopped when Tommy finally looked down at the script, and the suspicion turned to rage.

            “Jerry Devine…?”

            “I never bothered to read all that paperwork he made me sign, but you’re so anal—you must’ve read it.  Was there anything in there that’d give him the right to use every single word we said and make a profit off it years later?”

            “Of course there wasn’t!”  _Whoa, he’s so pissed off he didn’t even notice that I called him anal._

            “He’s already blown off my lawyer, and Mandy’s,” Curt pointed out.  “Maybe he’ll listen to yours.”  Tommy Stone’s absurdly lucrative shitty music would pay for a really powerful lawyer.  And since Brian Slade was a British citizen, it wouldn’t be an international suit, which would probably make things easier.  Even if Brian himself necessarily couldn’t show up in court.

            “What about the studio?”

            “They’re trying to bribe us so they can still make the movie.”  Of course, Curt had only gotten his hands on the script on Monday, so it wasn’t like much time had elapsed.  It’s just that he was already sick of dealing with it.

            “It doesn’t concern me,” Tommy insisted, without looking away from the script.

            “Uh-huh.  Clearly,” Curt replied, fighting off laughter.  _Who does he think he’s fooling?_

            “So you can just bugger off now.”

            “No, we still haven’t dealt with the reason I’m here.”

            “You’re not here because of this?”  Tommy lifted the script as he spoke, looking back up at Curt’s face with an expression that bordered on paranoia.

            “You think I’d put myself through this hell for _that_?  Don’t flatter yourself.  If that’s all it was, I’d just have sent it to Shannon and let _her_ deal with it.  She’ll probably be the most pissed of us all, anyway.”

            “Why?”  _Holy fucking hell, does he still not know how she feels about him?  Shit.  Even **I** knew that ten years ago.  That’s just pathetic.  Poor Shannon…_

            “You’ll figure it out,” Curt chuckled.  “Or not.”  He shrugged.  “What’s more important is if she told you about the man who wants to interview you for a book.”

            Tommy’s face twisted up into something cold and hating.  “It may have come up.”

            “Yeah, so, you’re gonna give him that interview.”

            “Are you really that high?”

            “I’ve been clean for almost four years.”

            “Bullshit.”

            “It’s true,” Curt insisted.  “Whether you believe it or not.  I couldn’t care less.”  _Not much less, anyway._   “But you _are_ going to do that interview.”

            “In hell.”

            “No, here on earth.  Though you can go to hell right after if you want.  If you’d have the balls to make the bullet _real_ this time.”

            “Why are you so concerned about whether or not I agree to talk to him?” Tommy asked suspiciously.  “Are you sleeping with him?”

            _Am I that obvious?_   “Does it matter?”

            A snort of laughter was the only response.

            “So I guess you’re jealous then,” Curt laughed.  _Time for plan B…_

            “You must be off your head.”

            “Either you’re jealous that maybe I’ve actually moved on with my life, or you’re just fucking scared.  Is that it?  You turned into a coward?”

            “You’re the one who’s afraid to face the world without shooting a little ‘courage’ into your veins.”

            _Okay, one more crack and I am punching his fucking lights out._   “You’re the one who took the easy way out.  Isn’t that cowardice?”

            Tommy glared at him, then thrust the script back at him.  “Take your fucking script and go away.”

            “I don’t want that piece of shit.  You keep it.  Read it before you decide if you really wanna stand by and let him get away with what he’s trying to pull.”

            “Fine.”  Tommy set the script down on the dressing table behind him, then smiled coldly.  “Security!” he shouted at the top of his lungs, in his fake American voice.

            Curt laughed.  “Well, if you’re gonna call the cops on me, I’d better deserve it, huh?”

            He punched Tommy in the jaw as hard as he could.  It felt good.

            “You bloody arsehole!  How dare you hit me in the _face_?!”

            “Shoulda aimed at your throat,” Curt sighed, shaking his head.  “Smash your larynx, so you couldn’t talk anymore.”

            Curt left the dressing room while Tommy was still screaming at him.

            He was a few feet away from the door by the time the security guards ran up to him.  They insisted on making sure he really left, but they didn’t lay a finger on him.  Maybe they were afraid that ‘gay’ was a communicable disease, and didn’t want to catch it…


	7. Chapter 7

            Curt insisted that he was still being followed by paparazzi, so they couldn’t go out, but as long as Arthur was going to stay the whole weekend, they shouldn’t notice.  It was embarrassing having to ask for a second Saturday off in a row, but by this point Arthur suspected he could probably spin his book idea into a career as a rock historian if need be, so he tried not to worry too much about the risk of being fired.

            Besides, spending a whole weekend alone with Curt was worth any risk.

            He had brought along his notepad and tape recorder, even though he knew he wasn’t going to be getting any use out of them.  In fact, he doubted he’d be getting much use out of his _clothes_.  Not that he was complaining.

            Saturday evening, they were cuddling on the sofa watching the television news—Arthur’s idea, of course, as Curt had wanted to put in a movie—while they waited for their dinner to be delivered.  Since it was too cold to sit around in just their drawers, but Curt hadn’t wanted them to waste time putting the rest of their clothes on, they were snuggled under a spare blanket off the bed.  The oddness of being nearly naked in a chilly room somehow ameliorated the drab domesticity of watching the evening news together, at least in Arthur’s view.

            The main portion of the news focused heavily on the week’s developments in the presidential primaries, though they did throw in a few stories of international interest.  But it wasn’t until the entertainment news that things truly became interesting.  A correspondent in London briefly introduced a clip from a press conference that had been held earlier that day.

            The location of the conference was unclear, perhaps an office or meeting room.  The main speaker was a barrister from a very expensive firm, and standing behind him were three very familiar men.  “I represent the interests,” the barrister was saying, “of Mr. Brian Slade and the former members of his band, the Venus in Furs.  Mr. Slade, unfortunately, is currently out of the country—” Curt snorted a laugh, and Arthur couldn’t help but chuckle as well.  “—and cannot be here today, but these gentlemen are the other plaintiffs in this case against one Jerry Devine, for gross infringement of personal privacy.  The defendant claims authorship of a screenplay which a major Hollywood movie studio is preparing to film.  However, the work consists entirely of words spoken by my clients and a few of their associates.  By changing their names, he is attempting to capitalise on their lives, without permission or compensation.”

            Trevor Finn took a place at the microphone.  “I looked over that bloody screenplay, and I knew right away which one was me—I remember saying and doing every single thing in it.  It’s an insult and a crime!”

            There was a jump cut to later in the conference, as a reporter asked a question.  “What is the goal of this suit?”

            “It is Mr. Slade’s primary desire to shut down this affront altogether,” the barrister responded.  “If neither Mr. Devine nor the studio will agree to that, then the script must be entirely rewritten, either rendering it proper fiction with little resemblance to real events, or the names must be restored to their original states, and all represented parties must be given immediate recompense as well as a share of the profits, if any.”

            “What about other people who would be represented in the film, apart from your clients?” another reporter asked.

            “This suit is exclusively within the British system of jurisprudence,” the barrister replied, “so it would be inappropriate for me to speak to the interests of the American parties equally outraged by this film project.  However, I have been in contact with the lawyers representing Mrs. Slade and Curt Wild, and their legal actions are being kept in constant consideration.”

            Arthur turned to look at Curt curiously.  “You didn’t say anything about a lawsuit.”

            “Well, it’s pretty boring stuff,” he said, with a weak smile.

            _An obvious lie.  But if he doesn’t want to talk about it…_

            The news switched back to the London correspondent.  “Jerry Devine, formerly manager to Brian Slade, denied the claims entirely, insisting that the script was a work of pure fiction.”

            “Lying sack of shit,” Curt snarled.

            Returning to the newsroom, the primary newsreader closed out the story by saying “Ms. Mandy Slade refused to release a statement to the press, and we were unable to reach Curt Wild.  An inside source at the studio says that pre-production on the film has been temporarily halted, pending a final decision in these three legal proceedings.  Zac Sessions, signed to play the romantic co-star ‘Frank Savage,’ has released a statement expressing his hope that the lawsuits will be settled in an amicable manner, so that production can get underway, as he is greatly looking forward to making the film.  However, the actor who had been in negotiations to play the leading role, ‘Ryan Roofe,’ has backed out of the picture, leading to the expectation that the entire project will be cancelled.”

            “Finally, some good news!” Curt crowed.

            “Frank Savage,” Arthur snorted, trying as hard as he could to fight off the laughter.

            “No one’s ever called the guy subtle,” Curt laughed.  “I guess we can knock ‘creative’ off the list, too.”

            They were silent for a few minutes as the television went into commercials.  Arthur felt something nagging uncomfortably at the back of his mind.

            “Um…Curt?”

            “What?”

            “I heard your radio interview earlier.  Brian wasn’t really sleeping with Devine, was he?”

            Curt laughed.  “God, I hope not!  I was just trying to gross that guy out.”

            Arthur let out a relieved chuckle.  He shouldn’t care anymore who Brian had or hadn’t slept with, but…there were limits.

            They relapsed into silence, and as the commercials ended and the news switched to the subject of sports, Arthur found his mind wandering, a dread unease creeping over him.  He tried cuddling closer under the blanket, hoping that would drive away the demons eating at him.

            It didn’t work.

            “Curt?”

            “Yeah?”  The reply was automatic; Curt seemed raptly interested in the story on the telly.  Arthur would never understand the appeal of the sport Americans laughably called ‘football.’  The televised broadcasts of it were nothing but padded, ugly men bending over, running around and falling into heaps.

            _Maybe that’s what Curt likes about it?_

            “Why…” Arthur started, then bit his lip, trying to figure out exactly how to say it.  “What do you see in me?”

            “What?”  Curt turned to look at him, his forehead furrowed and a hard look in his eyes that could be either anger or concern.  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

            “It’s just…I know what…why I…”  He sighed deeply.  “It’s hard to put this into words.”

            “I thought you made your living off words,” Curt chuckled.

            “Not this kind.  And not usually _spoken_ ones.”  Arthur shut his eyes and leaned his head down on Curt’s shoulder, running his hand across Curt’s bare chest.

            “You’re not gonna go to sleep and leave me hanging, are you?”

            Arthur chuckled.  “No, of course not.  I was just tryin’ to figure out what to say.”

            “Don’t.  Just _say_ it.  Fuck the whole delicacy thing.  Whatever you’ve got to say, I can take it.”

            “It’s not a—it’s a question, not a statement.”

            Curt let out a sigh that almost sounded like relief.

            “I guess, when it comes down to it, I’m worried about why you want to spend this time with me,” Arthur admitted.  “I know how I feel, but I don’t know what you’re thinkin’.”

            There was a long silence.  “Uh…are you demanding some kind of love confession or something?” Curt asked, his voice sceptical, yet also concerned.

            Arthur laughed.  “No, I just…I just want to know in advance if—if you’re just gonna get bored of me and send me away.”

            Curt put both arms around him, pulling him in close against his chest.  “I’d have thought you’d noticed by now that I don’t usually think that deep about stuff,” he said, with a low laugh that Arthur more felt than heard.  “I don’t bother thinking about why I wanna fuck someone.  I just know I do, that’s all.”

            “Uh…”  _Is that supposed to reassure me?_

            Curt sighed.  “If it’s any consolation, it’s been a few years since the last time I felt interested enough to bother.”  He laughed weakly.  “My sex drive’s been a lot lower since I sobered up.”

            “Why would it console me that you’ve gone a few years without sex?” Arthur asked.  It was a potential sudden abatement of desire in the near future that concerned him, not sexually transmitted diseases.

            “Well…just…”  Curt scowled, looking perplexed.  “After so long…I…”  He sighed, and shook his head.  “Just don’t worry about it.”

            Arthur was still trying to come up with some response, some way to explain why it wasn’t that simple, when the doorbell rang.  Without a word—or bothering to put on trousers—Curt got up and headed over to answer the door.  Arthur felt sorry for the delivery person.  He was undoubtedly not expecting to be collecting his money from a mostly naked man…

 

***

 

            When Arthur returned to work on Monday morning, he found himself quickly getting swamped by everything he had to do.  The election was already heating up—Reynolds had actually lost one of the Republican primaries, surprising everyone—and Arthur was beginning to hear back from some of the other American musicians who had decided they were willing to be interviewed for his book.  Considering that the first ones who contacted him were the members of the Rats—who Arthur had not, in fact, called to ask for interviews in the first place—it was quite obvious that Curt had been making some phone calls on his behalf.  He appreciated the gesture, but wished Curt had been a bit more considerate about the scheduling:  having them all start ringing up at the same time gave Arthur barely enough time even to hold the interviews, let alone process them.

            By Thursday evening, Arthur had already interviewed three local artists, and held two telephone interviews, though those were unlikely to prove useful, since his tape recorder had not been up to the challenge of capturing the voice on the other end of the line, and he was having to rely solely on his hastily jotted notes.

            As a result, he was utterly exhausted when he finally returned to his building.  The walls of the hallway were so thin that Arthur could hear the telephone ringing in his flat as soon as he got off the lift.  He sprinted down the hall—only two doors down—and unlocked the door so hastily that he left his keys dangling in the lock and the door hanging open on his way to the telephone.

            “Hello!” he called out, slightly before the receiver reached his face.

            “Sorry, were you in the shower or something?” Curt’s voice asked on the other end of the line.

            “No, I just got in,” Arthur explained.

            “What the fuck were you doing out at this time of night?” Curt demanded.  “It’s almost ten!”

            Arthur sighed.  _You don’t get to dictate my entire life, Curt._   “I was out conductin’ one of the interviews.”

            “At 9:45 at night?”

            “The interview started at 7:30, and ended about nine.  The rest was just transit time.”

            “Oh.  Okay.  Well, anyway, seems like the paparazzi have given up,” Curt informed him, “so we can finally go on a real date.”

            Arthur’s pulse quickened.  A proper date…with Curt Wild…?  The teenage boy inside him began bubbling up to the surface, giddy with delight.  “That’s great,” he said, wishing Curt could _see_ how happy he was.  His voice wasn’t enough to do the feelings justice.  “When?”

            “Tomorrow night okay?”

            “Uh…I have an interview scheduled for five o’clock,” Arthur told him, glancing down at his notes, “so I might not be free until about seven.  If that’s all right, then it’d be great.”

            “Where’s the interview taking place?”

            “At my office.  It’s actually not for the book:  it’s for work.”  But since it was with an election expert, expecting it to go on for two hours was, if anything, a conservative estimate.

            “So you could be here by 7:30?”

            “If everything goes perfectly and I don’t miss my train, yeah,” Arthur agreed.

            “Okay.  I’ll make the dinner reservations for eight.  Call if you’re running late.”

            “I will,” Arthur promised.

            They only talked for a little while longer before saying goodnight.  The question now, of course, was how Arthur was to get any sleep with something so exciting looming the next day!

            He tried to distract himself with busywork.  Sorting interviews for the book.  Making sure the tapes of un-transcribed interviews were safely stored and well-labelled.  Packing a little overnight bag with some spare clothes so he could stay the night at Curt’s place and still show up to work on Saturday morning wearing clean, fresh clothes…


	8. Chapter 8

            Of course, when Arthur showed up to work on Friday morning in his nicest clothes, everyone stared at him, and Murray teased him about it at every possible opportunity.  But there was also a bit of jealousy mixed in, as he seemed to think that Arthur was dressing up for another date with that waitress.

            The interview was so boring that it seemed interminable.  The so-called expert he was supposed to be mining for information was a political analyst who had spent his whole life watching and studying elections without ever running for office himself.  He had never even worked for a political candidate, nor did he have any particular training in the subject.  _Are all the **real** experts already signed to exclusive deals with better papers?_

            However, boring though it was, the interview actually ended early, so Arthur was able to get to Curt’s place a bit before 7:30.  Curt wasn’t quite finished getting dressed when he answered the door:  the shimmery shirt he wore over his black leather trousers was unbuttoned, leaving his chest entirely exposed, and he was padding about with no shoes on.  Of course, he looked delighted that Arthur had gotten there so quickly, but he laughed when he saw the overnight bag over Arthur’s shoulder.

            “What’s in the bag?” he asked.

            “A change of clothes.  For tomorrow.  Uh…just in case…”  Arthur could feel his face growing hot under Curt’s gaze. _Did I do something wrong?_  

            “That’s some blush you’ve got going,” Curt chuckled, taking the bag away from him.  “You are really too fucking cute,” he added, pulling Arthur’s face down to his own for a deep kiss.  “Just sit down on the sofa and get comfy while I finish getting ready,” Curt said when they parted again.  “I’ll put this in the bedroom where it belongs.”  So saying, he walked off with Arthur’s bag.

            Feeling oddly disquieted, Arthur did as he was told, and took a seat on the couch.  _Why am I nervous?  I spent the last two weekends here, most of the time with hardly any kit on.  Why should this be any different?_

            Trying to distract himself, he turned on the television, and started idly switching through the channels, hoping to find something interesting to watch.  Everything seemed to be sitcoms, however, so he was already switching it back off by the time Curt returned.  His shirt was buttoned now, and he was wearing a very high-heeled pair of cowboy boots.  _Does it really make you that insecure that you’re shorter than I am?  It's only a couple of inches...  
_

            “Would you rather I pulled my hair back?” Curt asked, touching his loose hair uncomfortably.  “People seem to stare more when it’s loose…”

            “I like it better this way,” Arthur told him, smiling.

            “Let’s go, then.”

            “We don’t need to call a cab?”

            “There’s usually plenty of them on the streets on a Friday night.  We’ll be fine,” Curt assured him.

            Curt’s optimism was misplaced.  The first time he tried to hail a passing cab, he had his arm around Arthur, and—if anything—the vehicle actually sped up to get away from them.  For the next several minutes, they just stood near each other and tried to flag down taxis, but still none stopped.  Arthur retreated into the shadows so Curt could try by himself, but the results were no different.

            “Do you have a reputation for stiffing cabbies?” Arthur asked, stepping back out of the shadows.

            “’Course not!” Curt insisted.

            Arthur sighed.  “Maybe they’re unnerved by a man with shoulder-length hair.  I’ll try signalin’ them; you step back so they don’t see you.”

            Curt grumbled about it considerably as he moved into the shadows.  Of course, that had to be the moment when the cabs stopped passing by, but eventually another appeared, and Arthur signalled to it.  It still sped past, making Curt laugh viciously.

            They might never have gotten to the restaurant if someone else hadn’t arrived in a taxi while they were arguing about whose fault it was the cabs wouldn’t stop.  The ride to the restaurant was tense and silent.  Even the cabbie seemed to feel the unease permeating the back seat, and he made no attempt to converse with them.

            Due to their difficulty getting a cab, they arrived at the restaurant enough past their reservation time that their table was no longer available, and they had to wait in the bar for another one to open up.  At first, they continued sullen there, too, but by the time Curt had finished his first drink, that had changed.  He moved his stool closer to Arthur’s, and leaned over towards him, sliding an arm around his shoulders.

            “Drink up,” he breathed into Arthur’s ear.  “It’s good stuff.”

            “Curt, you’re makin’ a scene,” Arthur muttered.  He could _feel_ the other patrons staring at them.

            “Hey, I look like any other drunk in the city!”

            “Except you only had one drink,” Arthur sighed.  “No one’s going to believe you’re doin’ this because you’re drunk.”

            “Want me to start yelling incoherently?” Curt suggested, with a laugh.

            “Please don’t.”

            Curt stayed like that for another thirty seconds or so, then sighed and let go, resuming a more upright posture.  “Are you just shy, or are you ashamed of me?”

            “I don’t like ’aving people stare at me.”

            Curt laughed.  “When did that happen?”

            Arthur flinched.  “I’m not sure,” he admitted.  “I…maybe I was always like this…”

            “There’s no way you were all prettied up like that ‘cause you _didn’t_ want people to look at you,” Curt said, with a lewd tone in his voice that caressed Arthur and made him unnervingly desirous.

            “That was…that was the aberration,” Arthur sighed.  “I’d never really been the type to try to stand out before runnin’ off to London…”

            Curt just looked at him for a few minutes, a sadness playing across his face.  “It’s too bad,” he finally said, shaking his head.  “You were _made_ to be stared at.”

            Naturally, that did nothing to make Arthur feel less awkward.

            They were rescued from their new silence by a waiter arriving to inform them that their table was ready.  It was a small, pleasant booth, hidden away in a shady alcove; very secluded and romantic.  At first, they sat there in relative silence, only talking to discuss the menu.  Arthur found the menu rather intimidating, really; this place was so posh it didn’t even put prices on the menu.  No wonder people were staring at them:  this was a suit-and-tie type place, and Curt had shoulder-length hair, no tie, leather trousers and cowboy boots.  Yet no one had tried to stop him from entering, despite that he clearly didn’t meet their—probably unwritten—dress code.  He must have come often enough in the past that they were willing to waive the formalities for him.

            Only after they had given the waiter their orders did they start really talking.  “Why did the paparazzi give up?” Arthur asked.

            “I guess the lawsuit finally drove it through their thick skulls that I was telling the truth and wanted nothing to do with that brat,” Curt concluded.  “’Course, the down side of that is that now people’re gonna forget about me again,” he sighed.  “Unless Alicia comes through with a new record deal before the labels realise that.”

            Arthur chuckled.  “Of course, if you put out a new record, people will expect you to release modern-style music.  Upbeat pop music with simple, cheerful lyrics.”

            “I think I’d rather fade away again,” Curt replied, with a nauseated grimace.

            “Though speakin’ of the lawsuit,” Arthur said, after a moment’s thought, “or rather the news broadcasts about it, why hasn’t Mandy gone back to usin’ her maiden name?”

            Curt lifted an eyebrow.  “She didn’t tell you when you were interviewing her?”

            “Tell me what?”

            “Brian never signed the divorce papers,” Curt told him.  “They’re still married.”

            “Really?”

            Curt nodded.  “She tried a few times to get him to sign—even sent lawyers to harass him—but Brian wouldn’t cooperate.  He doesn’t like to let go of his toys, even when he’s done playing with them.”

            Arthur nodded.  But thinking back to the look on Brian’s face as he had watched Curt perform at the Death of Glitter concert, there hadn’t been anything terribly possessive about it:  he had looked sad, even broken-hearted.

            “I guess I should give him credit, though,” Curt continued.  “He’s actually living up to it, in a way.  He opened a joint account in both their names, and he still puts in money once a month.”  He laughed.  “Mandy’s never touched a penny of it, though.  I don’t think I’d have that kind of self-restraint if it was _me_ he was giving money to.”

            “How much is it?”

            “A fucking lot,” Curt chuckled.  “She showed me one of the bank statements once.”

            “Are you two friends now?”  Something about that struck Arthur as decidedly odd.

            “Well, kind of.  I mean, there’s no one else we can talk to about some of that shit, you know?”  Curt smiled, and shook his head again.  His smile faded as he began talking again  “Besides…for a while there…she was the only one who gave a rat’s ass what happened to me.  I’d probably have died face-down in a ditch somewhere if she hadn’t lent me a hand.”

            “Curt…”  _Was Mandy the one who paid your court fees?  Or to put you through rehab?_

            Curt shrugged.  “Anyway, she says the real reason she still goes by Mandy Slade is ‘cause people have heard of her by _that_ name, but if she went back to her maiden name, she’d just be yet another middle-aged blonde no one’s ever heard of.”

            “That’s a bit harsh.”

            “That was how _she_ put it,” Curt assured him.  “Though maybe that was more of a jab at me than anything else…”

            “Even if some people might have forgotten you, everyone _used_ to know your name,” Arthur reminded him, setting a gentle hand on Curt’s hand.

            Curt grinned at him, turning his hand over to grip Arthur’s tightly.  “I think at this point in my life, I prefer quality to quantity,” he said, staring intensely into Arthur’s eyes.

            The longer their eyes were locked, the more Arthur had to remind himself that they were in public, that this was no place to start getting romantic.  Finally, he had to look away, terrified of what he might do otherwise.  No matter how secluded their table seemed to be, there were still people who could see them, to say nothing of the waiter who might return at any minute with their drinks or their appetisers.

            In fact, it really was only a few minutes later when the waiter returned, forcing them to part their hands very quickly.  Once the waiter was gone again, Curt waited until Arthur had his drink almost to his lips before speaking.  “So which do _you_ prefer?” he asked.  “Quality or quantity?”

            Arthur clamped his eyes shut very tightly, not wanting to look at the lewd expression he _knew_ was on Curt’s face, even without seeing it.  “You’re usin’ those words very differently from the way you were a few minutes ago, aren’t you?” he asked.

            “Maybe,” Curt admitted.  “But you still haven’t answered.”

            Setting his glass down again, Arthur slowly looked back up at Curt.  His expression wasn’t just lewd:  it was also eager, and impish.  “I suppose my answer will dictate what happens after we leave the restaurant?”

            “Maybe.”

            Arthur chuckled.  “Well, in that case…I guess I’d prefer both,” he teased.

            “Oh, I can arrange that,” Curt assured him, with a wide grin.  _Apparently, that was the right answer…_

            Arthur was afraid to say anything else, since Curt’s conversation was becoming more and more erotically charged as the evening wore on.  For them to get thrown out of the restaurant for lewd conduct hardly seemed an ideal ending to their first proper date.

            “So…I’ve been wondering something,” Curt said, after the waiter had been with their entrées.

            “What is it?”

            “You were pretty eager to hop into the sack…what was that, two weeks ago?”

            Arthur could feel his cheeks heating up.  “I’m not sure this is the place to discuss that,” he said quietly.

            “No one’s listening,” Curt assured him.  Arthur did not share his confidence of that.  Not in the least.  “Anyway, was that just…what was that?  You always that eager to go back to bed with your exes?”

            “I don’t recall the bed being involved,” Arthur chuckled, shaking his head.  “And no, I’m not usually like that.  Though I don’t know that a one-night stand counts as an ‘ex’ by most definitions.”

            Curt shrugged.  “So if it’s unusual…have you spent the last ten years pining for me?” he asked, with a wicked chuckle.

            “I’d hardly call it that,” Arthur sighed.  Then he started eating his dinner, trying to signal an end to that line of conversation.

            “What _would_ you call it, then?”

            _Leave it to Curt to refuse to take a hint…_   “I’m not sure,” Arthur admitted.  “I…I spent a number of years tryin’ very hard _not_ to think about you.  Or anything else I associated with the ‘70s.”

            From the disconcerted look on his face, Curt didn’t much care for that answer.  “Why would you do that?”

            “It didn’t seem very conducive to makin’ my way through the world on my own,” Arthur sighed.  “The world’s not the same place it was.”

            “Yeah, tell me about it,” Curt sighed.  “But you must have thought about me _sometimes_ , right?”

            “What about you?” Arthur countered.  “Did you ever spare a even a single thought for me before we met again?”

            “I asked first,” Curt said firmly.

            Arthur sighed.  _No getting it out of it, then._   “In lookin’ back over my life recently, I realised…how can I put it?”  _More importantly, how can I put it without givin’ you a swelled head?_  “Whether you were actually there or not, you’ve been a presence across my life, particularly at moments that were truly life-altering.”

            Curt stared at him, probing with his eyes and making Arthur fight the need to squirm.  “How long’s that been the case?” he asked.

            “Mm…I guess…”  Arthur paused a moment.  _When **did** it start?_

            “Like, was I the first guy you were ever hot for?” Curt asked, with a wicked twinkle in his eye.

            Arthur laughed.  “No, sorry.”

            “Damn.”  Curt shook his head.  “So who was?  And don’t you dare say it was Brian…”

            “It wasn’t,” Arthur assured him.  “I was…thirteen?  Maybe fourteen?”  He shrugged.  “A new boy arrived in our neighbourhood, a few years older than me.”

            “Good-looking?”

            Arthur nodded.  “When he started a band, all the local girls were immediately smitten with him.  I had thought I just liked the music he played—”

            “Any of ‘em my songs?” Curt interrupted.

            Arthur shut his eyes in concentration.  “I can’t remember what songs his band would play,” he admitted, opening his eyes again.  “Some of them might ‘ave been yours.  It was the right type of music, anyway.”

            “So what happened?  Did you ask him out?  Did he ask you out?”

            “Hardly,” Arthur chuckled.  “No, he started datin’ a girl from school.  But the more I saw them together, the more I felt something…something awful inside me.”

            “You were jealous.”

            Arthur nodded.  “I didn’t want to think that I felt the same way as the girls who were so upset that he’d gotten a girlfriend, but…it was hard to see it any other way.”  He smiled weakly.  “I spent the next year or so in denial.  Insistin’ that I didn’t—that I couldn’t fancy a bloke the same way I could fancy a girl.  But then I heard Brian talkin’ about how everyone was bisexual, deep down, and…I realised that maybe it wasn’t me that was broken:  it was everyone else who was wrong.  Then when he started—when he got involved with you, even though he already had a wife, it seemed like proof that he really _meant_ everything, that it wasn’t something he was sayin’ just to be outrageous.”  Arthur bit his lip, and poked at his dinner with his fork, moving some broccoli from one side of the plate to the other absently.  “It wasn’t until I’d seen you both in person that I realised it was you I was reactin’ to when pictures of you two together would…excite me…”

            Curt smiled wickedly, and reached under the table to grip Arthur’s knee.  But then his smile abruptly faded.  “Wait, when did you ever see Brian in person?”

            _Shite, I can’t tell him Mandy lied to him…_   “I was there that day ten years ago,” Arthur said.  “When he faked his own assassination.”

            “Fuck.  That must have been horrible.”

            Arthur nodded.  “I think ‘traumatic’ is probably the only word for it.”  _And yet, strangely, I was never angry about it the way so many other fans were, when the truth came out._   “You kept bein’ a presence, even though you weren’t there,” Arthur went on, trying to skip as far ahead as possible, lest he accidentally reveal Curt’s unwitting role in Arthur’s abrupt departure from his family home.  “When I first arrived in New York, the first thing I heard when I got off the plane—even before I went through Customs—was someone’s radio playin’ one of your songs.”

            Curt chuckled.  “Seriously?”

            Arthur nodded.  “I met a girlfriend through your music not long after that.”

            “I’m not sure I like that.”

            “She was listenin’ to one of your songs,” Arthur continued, trying not to admit how much Curt’s jealousy—feigned though it surely was—pleased him, “and I found myself stoppin’ nearby to listen.  When she noticed me, I told her I loved the song, and—”

            “One thing led to another,” Curt finished for him.  “Yeah, I know how it goes.  I’ve seen plenty of movies in my day.”

            Arthur laughed.  “It wasn’t anything quite that interesting.”  He shrugged.  “Actually, though, she won us tickets to your big New Year’s Eve concert,” Arthur told him.  _Your last truly major concert.  The last one before you got arrested…_

            “How come you didn’t come see me after the show?” Curt asked, his voice filled with hurt.

            “Aside from the fact that I was only there because my _girlfriend_ had won tickets?” Arthur countered.  “How about the fact that _you_ had a rather well-publicised girlfriend there?”

            “I had a girlfriend at that point?”  Curt frowned, looking down at his steak, as if it might know the answer.  “I don’t remember that.  Who was she?”

            “Uh, I don’t remember her name.  The underwear model.”

            “Oh, right, her,” Curt said, nodding.  “Forgot that was ’79.”

            Arthur sighed deeply.  “How could you forget datin’ an underwear model?”

            “It wasn’t actually a very satisfying experience,” Curt assured him.  “Yeah, she was _hot_ , but…fuck, trying to talk to her gave me a headache.”

            “Why?  Did she have a terrible voice, like Lena Lamont?”

            Curt laughed.  “No, she had a beautiful voice.  It’s just she never wanted to talk about anything but her studies.”

            “Her studies?” Arthur repeated, a bit confused.

            “Yeah, she was only modelling to pay her tuition.  She was working on a PhD in Astrophysics.”

            “You must be jokin’.”

            “I’m totally serious.  I didn’t understand half the shit she said,” Curt sighed.  “That’s why she dumped me, of course.  Said hanging out with me was intellectual slumming.”

            “That seems uncalled for.”

            Curt shrugged.  “I was too high to care at that point.”

            “Oh.”

            Uncomfortably, Arthur turned his attention to his food, hoping to bury the conversation now that it had died an unpleasant death.  After a moment or two, Curt did likewise, and started cutting little cubes off his steak, spearing them violently with his fork once they were separated from the main slab of meat.  But one of them, rather than cooperating, went flying off his plate and ended up on the floor.

            Without even hesitating, Curt got up, picked up the little piece of beef, brushed it off a bit, and then popped it in his mouth.  Arthur found himself cradling his head in his hands as Curt sat down again.

            “What is the _matter_ with you?” Arthur moaned.

            “What?  It was only down there for a second or two!” Curt insisted.  _You’ve had this argument before, haven’t you?_   “Besides, look how clean the floor is!  They’re always cleaning it.  It’s probably cleaner than the plates in most roadside diners.”

            “That’s not the point…”

            “Then what _is_ the point?” Curt demanded.

            Arthur sighed.  “This is a very high class establishment.  You can’t just pick food up off the floor and eat it:  you’ll make the other patrons uncomfortable.”

            “I don’t care about them.”

            “Well, you _should_ care, because if you do too much to upset them, they might call the management over and ask that you be removed from the restaurant,” Arthur pointed out.

            “Just let ‘em fucking try!”

            They were still arguing about it when an older gentleman in a very crisp suit approached the table in quite a hurry.  But he stopped suddenly, and smiled nervously.  “Oh, Mr. Wild, it’s you…” he said.  “Such a long time since you’ve visited our establishment.”

            “Yeah, not really the kind of place to come by yourself, you know?” Curt replied, with a grin at Arthur.  “But until recently I didn’t have anyone to bring…”

            “Is…is everything to your liking tonight?”

            “Yeah, it’s great, thanks.”

            The man expressed his hope that Curt would continue to be pleased, and then scurried off again.  _Was that the manager?  He was all but bowin’ and scrapin’…_

            Arthur cleared his throat.  “All right, so maybe you won’t get us thrown out,” he admitted.  “But that was still embarrassing.”

            “You’re still going on about that?”

            “So I think you need to make it up to me.”

            “Oh?”  Curt sounded more suspicious than anything else.

            “By answerin’ the question I put to you earlier.”

            “What question?”

            “About whether or not you ever thought about me even once in the past nine years,” Arthur said firmly.  _I know I won’t like the answer, but I think I deserve to know the truth._

            Curt cleared his throat uncomfortably.  “Not…um…as often as I should have…”

            “That’s no kind of answer.”

            Curt sighed.  “I’m not gonna lie and say I was always daydreaming about the most incredible one-night stand I’d ever had.  That’d be an insult to your intelligence and mine.”  He shook his head.  “But yeah, my mind did stray back there once in a while.  I mean, no offense to your current skills, but that’s still the best sex I’ve ever had.”  _If that’s true, you must ‘ave been on some particularly striking drugs.  No one else I ever slept with thought I was all that great at it._

            Arthur laughed.  “Me, too,” he agreed.

            Curt looked at him with a guarded expression for a moment, as if he was contemplating going into a fit of rage.  But then he smiled, and shrugged.  “So, there’s your answer.  Not often, but it did happen.”

            “And did you actually put the pieces together when we saw each other again?” Arthur went on.  “Did you realise who I was?”

            “Uh…well…no,” Curt admitted, with a sheepish smile that was devilishly attractive.  “I mean, I felt like maybe I’d seen you before, or at least that you were really cute, but…it took me almost a week to figure out where we’d met before.  Only then I wasn’t quite sure what to do about it.”

            “Or if you even wanted to do anything about it?”

            “Well…it’s…more that I wasn’t sure if _you_ wanted me to do anything about it,” Curt replied, shrugging slightly.  “I mean, I know you were on…what was it, mescaline?”

            Arthur’s face felt like it had been thrust in a fire.  Stiffly, he nodded just a tiny bit.  The gesture made Curt laugh.

            “Yeah, so there was a chance you didn’t remember, or thought it had been a hallucination or something,” Curt chuckled.  “But mostly…I mean…you might have been pissed at me.”

            “For disappearin’ like that?”  _I was hurt, not angry._

            “Or just for fucking you in the first place.  I mean, you were pretty young and all.  And I had assumed that I was your first…”

            “What teenager could ever be cross with a rock god for fucking him?” Arthur laughed.

            “Okay, if you put it _that_ way, sure, but…”  Curt paused a moment, biting his lip, then let out a deep laugh.  “Could you call me that again sometime?  That’s a serious turn-on.”

            Arthur shook his head, trying not to laugh.  “I’m not about to stroke your ego on command, Curt.”  He couldn’t stop his lips from forming a huge smile.  “I might stroke something else if you ask nicely,” he added, nudging Curt’s feet under the table.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I totally fell in love with that idea of Curt performing at a New Year's Eve concert at the end of 1979, and Arthur being in the audience. This is where it started, even if it *is* the last to be posted. (Though I didn't go into many details in "Wild Child," if I recall correctly. And in "Happy New Decade" I kept some details while changing others.) I still love the idea, though: it's kind of part of my standard head canon now.


	9. Chapter 9

            When he managed to wake up on Saturday morning, Arthur quickly made a mental note never, ever again to tell Curt he was looking for quantity as well as quality.  _Quality.  Just quality_.

            He was exhausted, quite certain he’d only gotten a few scanty hours of sleep, _and_ he was probably going to be late to work.  As he showered, various pieces of the previous evening flashed through his head.  The embarrassing way Curt had insisted that they _had_ to make out in the cab on the way back—that he’d just _die_ if he had to wait any longer—that the cabbie wasn’t going to notice or care.  The undressing so hasty that Arthur’s best shirt had probably been ruined.  Curt’s insistence on developing new and physically improbable sexual positions, despite Arthur’s assertion that he was not a contortionist, and couldn’t tie himself into a pretzel and still be receptive to sexual intercourse.  But mostly he kept wondering how in the world a man of Curt’s age—a man who had spent decades treating his body like shit—could have the strength and endurance necessary to have sex that many times in a single night.

            Fortunately, Curt was still snoring in bed by the time Arthur finished getting dressed.  There wasn’t time to deal with it, so he just left his other clothes and the overnight bag behind as he hurried out the door to catch his train.

            Arthur made it to work with less than thirty seconds to spare, and he was quite out of breath, having run the entire distance from the subway to his desk.  He hadn’t even had time to wait for the lift, and had been forced to take the stairs.  This made the one and only time he had ever seen an advantage to his desk being right next to the water cooler.

            He was halfway through the rough draft of the article based on yesterday’s interview when the telephone at his desk rang.  Arthur answered it on the assumption that it was Lou asking for an update on the state of the article, so he was quite surprised to hear Curt’s voice on the other end.  “What the fuck are you doing at work on a Sunday?”

            “It’s Saturday, Curt.”

            “Whichever!  What are you doing working on the weekend?”

            Arthur sighed.  “Newspapers go out seven days a week.”  _You’d know that if you ever actually **read** one._   “Very few people in the office get more than a single day a week off.”

            “But earlier you—”

            “I was takin’ vacation days,” Arthur sighed.  “I’m right in the middle of writin’ a story.  We can talk when I get back tonight, all right?”

            “Oh.  Yeah…I guess so.”

            _You **guess** so?_

            Arthur couldn’t ask any of the questions that were bothering him, because Curt hung up without another word.  He spent the rest of the morning worrying about just how Curt was going to make him suffer for having dared to live his own life instead of waiting about the flat for the next time Curt’s erection needed tending to.

            Most of his lunch break was spent in mentally composing some very serious lectures about how he was his own man, and not a sex slave.  He knew he’d never have the nerve to speak any of them aloud, but just thinking them up made him feel a bit better.

            Halfway through the afternoon, he forgot all of them anyway.

            The phone rang again, and this time the voice on the other end was a woman’s voice, faintly familiar.  “You said earlier that you would be willing to sign a non-disclosure agreement,” she said, sounding mistrustful.

            _Shite, did Curt even talk to **him**?!_

            “Yes, that’s right,” Arthur agreed quickly.  “If that’s what it takes.”

            “What would be the point of an interview if you couldn’t repeat anything you learned from it?” Shannon’s voice mocked.

            Arthur cleared his throat.  “Obviously the non-disclosure agreement wouldn’t cover _everything_.  Only…the events of the last five years.”  The name change went through in 1979, after all…

            “Hmm.”

            There was such a long silence that Arthur began to fear she had hung up on him.  “Miss Hazelbourne?”

            “I am entirely opposed to the entire idea of this interview,” she said firmly.

            “If the lawsuits don’t convince the studio to close down that movie, he’ll ‘ave to come face to face with his past whether you like it or not,” Arthur said quietly, looking around to make sure no one was listening in.  “Once the real man is the subject of that much media attention…sooner or later someone else will put the pieces together.”

            “Hmph.”  It was more of a snort than a proper vocalisation.  “Did you actually ‘put the pieces together,’ or did your _boyfriend_ tell you?”

            Arthur’s heart lurched.  There was something crushing about the word ‘boyfriend’ first being applied in this terrible setting.  “I figured it out myself,” Arthur assured her, “because of you, Miss Hazelbourne.”

            There was a slight gasp, followed by the crashing, ringing sound of a receiver being slammed back down onto its base.

            Arthur spent most of the rest of the day wondering what he _should_ have said instead.

 

***

 

            Going out was definitely more trouble than it was worth.  He’d never liked having people stare at him when he was feeling romantic anyway.  Reason number one—out of about a million—that he should never have gone along with Jerry’s plans way back when.

            But that didn’t matter anymore.

            There wasn’t anyone trying to make a profit off of Arthur.  No one had ever even heard of him, and his face—despite how pretty it was—was entirely unknown.  So no one would even care if they saw Curt with him.

            But it was still too much trouble to go out.  No one _got_ it these days.  Too many people got all pissy about seeing two men together.

            That was why Curt had decided to order in.  He’d called his favorite Chinese place, and ordered a nice dinner for two to be delivered at eight.  That was probably late enough that Arthur would be back from work.

            _Still seems fucking suspicious, him having to work on a weekend…_

            In the meantime, there wasn’t much to do but wait.  He was too anxious to try working on any new songs, even though his manager was really crawling all over his ass demanding that he get some songs ready, just in case she could get him a new record deal while the media still remembered he existed.  But how was he supposed to concentrate on _anything_ when he’d expected to wake up with a beautiful boy—man—in his arms and had woken up alone instead?

            That kind of thing could really fuck with a guy’s head.

            He’d gotten the dining room ready for dinner—not that that had involved much apart from putting out some candles and incense and getting some plates ready to dump the food on—so there wasn’t anything else to do apart from sitting on the sofa and staring at the TV like a fucking idiot.

            So that was what he was doing.

            Until finally— _finally_!—the doorbell rang at about seven.  Curt didn’t want to let on that he’d been waiting impatiently, so he did his best to saunter over to the door slowly.

            Well, it didn’t really turn out to be very slow, and it couldn’t really be called a saunter.  But at least he didn’t _run_.

            However, when he opened the door, it wasn’t Arthur on the other side.

            “Oh.”

            “You left off the ‘hell’ at the beginning,” Mandy said, with a sour look on her face.  “Or am I not good enough to greet properly?”

            “This really isn’t a good time,” Curt sighed.  He couldn’t handle this right now…

            “I don’t care if it’s a ‘good time’ or not!” Mandy insisted, pushing him backwards so she could walk into his apartment as if she owned the place.

            “Come on in,” Curt grumbled, slamming the door.

            “Just _what_ is going on?” Mandy demanded, her hands on her hips.  “If it was just Brian, I’d understand.  When I heard about you forcing your way backstage to talk to him, I _thought_ it was about that movie.  But do you have any idea how many people I’ve run into in the last few days?  People I haven’t seen in years—who _you_ haven’t spoken to in years—who say you’ve suddenly called them up?  And they won’t any of them tell me _why_ you called them, they just said you called, and then when it becomes clear you hadn’t called me, they go all quiet.  What is it?  What are you plotting behind my back?”

            “Okay, okay, lay off the fucking paranoia pills already!” Curt shouted.

            “You do know what happened to me,” Mandy pointed out.  “Can you blame me for feeling a bit paranoid?”

            “It’s not as bad as what happened to _me_ ,” Curt reminded her.  “Anyway, you’re totally overreacting.”

            “Do tell.”

            Curt grimaced.  _Okay, what’s the fastest way I can explain this and get her the fuck out of here?_

            “I’m waiting.”

            “Yeah, yeah, I know, just—look, there’s just…well—”

            The phone started ringing, making Mandy laugh, even as Curt went to answer it.  “Don’t think you’ve been saved by the bell,” she told him, “because I still want the truth.”

            Curt ignored her, and answered the phone.  “I’m sorry, Curt,” Arthur’s voice said through the phone.  “I’ve been distracted all day, and I keep fouling up my article.  I can’t leave until I get it properly finished so the paper can go to bed.  And then I’ll have to go back to my flat to get more clean clothes, so…I’ll be late.”

            “Oh…well…try and hurry?”  _What the fuck else can I say?_

            “I will.  I promise.”

            Curt sighed as he hung up the phone.  Then he went to the fridge and got a beer.  “Want one?” he asked Mandy.

            “No, just answers.”

            “Don’t think you can drink those, but suit yourself.”  Opening his beer on the way, Curt headed back into the living room and flopped back down on the couch.

            Mandy followed him into the living room and sat down in one of the chairs, staring at him expectantly.

            _Guess there’s nothing for it…_

            Miserably, Curt explained all about Arthur’s project, and how he might have gotten a little overenthusiastic about helping out by calling a few old friends and encouraging them to cooperate.

            “Well, I’m glad to hear you’ve got a sweet new boyfriend, but why didn’t you call _me_?” Mandy asked.  “I’ve got just as many memories of that time as anyone else, you know.”

            Curt laughed uncomfortably.  “Yeah, well, the thing is…I didn’t think you’d want to talk to him.”

            “And why in the world would that be?”

            “Because you’ve talked to him before.”

            “What?”

            Curt sighed.  “He’s the reporter who was trying to find Brian earlier.”

            “Jesus.”  Mandy shook her head.  “Curt, you’re gonna get someone _killed_!”

            “Why?  How?  He’s not—I’m not—it’s totally safe, really!”

            “How could it be safe?!” Mandy exclaimed.  “Curt, they were ready to _kill_ me if they had to!  _Me_!  Do you have any idea what kind of people they are?”

            “Yeah, I know all that, but the story was cancelled.  He’s not working on it anymore, so they shouldn’t care.”

            “They’re still going to care.”

            “They haven’t done anything yet,” Curt pointed out.

            “How long has this been going on?”

            “Two weeks.”

            Mandy sighed.  “I hope you’re right, but…God.  At least be careful, all right?  Don’t be seen with him in public, whatever you do.”

            _Uh…shit.  We kinda made a spectacle of ourselves just last night…_

            “Too late, is it?” Mandy guessed.

            “Yeah…a little bit…”

            Mandy grimaced.  “I hope he thinks you’re worth dying for.”

            “Don’t say stuff like that.”  Curt shook his head.  “Can’t you talk to Brian about it?”

            “What good would that do?” Mandy laughed.  “If they were threatening to kill me, they don’t work for _him_.  There are a lot of ways he might try to punish me, but death isn’t one of them.  Besides, there’s no way I could get past Shannon to speak to him anyway.”

            “Suppose they work for _her_?”

            Mandy shrugged, with a cold little smile.  “ _That_ seems possible,” she agreed.  “But my money is still on Reynolds.  Or at least someone in his immediate circle.”

            Curt sighed.  “You do realize they might have only been _threatening_ and not been ready to act on it, right?”

            “Aren’t you the one who reported having a gun pulled on him?”

            “I wasn’t a hundred percent sober at the time,” Curt admitted.  “I probably wouldn’t have noticed the difference if it’d been a fake.  And even if it was real, it might not have been loaded.”

            “Or maybe they’d have blown your head off if you’d decided not to cooperate.”

            Curt shrugged.  “No way of knowing now.”

            “Unless you or your boyfriend turns up in the morgue some morning.”

            “If they were gonna do that, they’d’ve already done it.  Anyway, if they’re _not_ working for Brian, then that means if they show up and we tell him about it, he might be able to call whoever they _do_ work for and call them off.”

            “Assuming he’d be willing to,” Mandy countered.  “For me, he probably would.  For you, maybe.  For your boyfriend?  He’d probably help pull the trigger.”

            _That seems like Brian’s speed, all right…_

            Curt took a long swallow from his beer, trying to drown that thought.


	10. Chapter 10

            It was nearly nine by the time Arthur finally got back to Curt’s flat, and he was honestly a little afraid to ring the bell.  _After I promised I’d hurry, it still took forever.  He must be livid…_

            However, waiting would only make things worse, so he steeled himself and rang the bell.  Though perhaps not quite as boldly as a man ought.  But they’d only been seeing each other—well, sleeping together—for two weeks!  The thought of being dumped after nine years of longing and only two weeks of fucking…it chilled him to the bone.

            Curt looked more tired than angry when he opened the door.  “Thank God,” he murmured, pulling Arthur through the door and into his arms for a brief kiss.  “You missed dinner, by the way.”

            “Um, that’s okay.  Everyone stayin’ late at the office ordered in,” Arthur assured him.  “But what’s wrong?”

            Curt didn’t answer.  He just walked off towards the dining room.  Following him, Arthur was shocked to see Mandy Slade sitting there, idly prodding the contents of a white box of take-out Chinese food with a pair of chopsticks.  She glanced up at him, then gave him a smile and a brief wave.

            “Oh…uh…hello?”  _What’s Mandy doin’ here?  And eatin’ dinner?_

            “See, _some_ people know how to greet a girl,” Mandy said, aiming a wicked smile at Curt, who had taken a seat at the far end of the table, near some take-out containers that lay on their sides, hopefully already emptied of their contents.

            “Fuck off.”

            “You see, this is why everyone assumes you were raised by animals,” she laughed.

            “What…what’s goin’ on?” Arthur asked, as he sat down next to Curt.

            “Just a little social call,” Mandy assured him.  “I didn’t mean to interrupt your date.”

            Arthur nodded, then looked at Curt with concern.  “Ah…Curt…did you…”  _No, I can’t ask if—why—he talked to Brian about me.  Not with his ex-wife here.  No, his **wife** …_

            “Anything happen today?” Curt asked, looking into Arthur’s eyes.  He almost looked worried.

            “Well, nothing much.”   _Apart from a rather unsettling phone call from Shannon._   “Though, actually,” he glanced over at Mandy, then looked back at Curt, “there was something that came up.  Just something I overheard at dinner.”

            “What’s that?”

            “The bloke who covers entertainment news said he had talked to a local lawyer about precedent.”  Arthur sighed deeply.  Curt wasn’t going to like this.  Probably Mandy wouldn’t, either.

            “Well, don’t leave us in suspense!” Mandy exclaimed.  “What sort of precedent?”  From the twinkle in her eye, she didn’t understand that this applied to _her_ , not to Arthur.  She probably thought it was about same-sex marriage or something.

            “About…contested memoirs, essentially,” Arthur sighed.  “According to that lawyer, if the names in that screenplay are reverted to the real names, and every scene shows an actor representing Jerry Devine witnessin’ the events, then they can make the movie without your permission, and without payin’ you.”

            “That’s gotta be a violation of copyright!” Curt insisted.

            Arthur shook his head.  “Your songs are copyrighted.  Your life isn’t.”

            “That’s bullshit!  It has to be a violation of _some_ kind of right!” Curt repeated.

            “So long as it’s presented as Devine’s memoirs, there’s nothing anyone can do to stop it.”

            “Like _Mommie Dearest_ ,” Mandy sighed.  “Is this lawyer someone working for the studios?”

            “No, he’s just a legal expert who was bein’ consulted for an unrelated article.  But Hollywood’s fallen back on the memoir excuse before; they won’t have forgotten about it.”

            “Yeah, but wasn’t she already dead when that book got published?” Curt countered.

            “It doesn’t change anything,” Arthur sighed.

            “We can still fight it in court until the court costs are so high that the movie would never make enough money to profit,” Mandy suggested.  “Even if we lose the suit, I doubt the court would expect us to pay the studio’s legal fees.  No matter what the legal precedent, our privacy is still being invaded; we’re the victims.”

            “What about British law?” Curt asked.  “Brian’s suing Devine directly, right?  In the English courts.  Will that shut it down?”

            Arthur shrugged.  “I’d have to call a London barrister to find out, and I don’t know any.  I suspect that the most they could do would be to prevent the film’s release in England.”

            Curt frowned, then shook his head after a minute or two.  “Maybe it’s actually better this way,” he said.

            “How could it possibly be _better_ if the studio has an excuse to make that picture?” Mandy asked, aghast.

            “How long is he gonna be able to keep his secret under wraps with that much renewed public interest?” Curt responded, with a laugh.  “Whoever those guys are, they’ll be too busy to bother with us anymore.”

            “Unless they decide to silence us all before the movie can open to generate all that interest,” Mandy countered.

            _Shite…are they still being threatened?_   “Um…”

            “Oh, don’t worry about it,” Mandy said, getting to her feet.  “After all, if _Curt_ thinks it’s fine—”

            “I’m not stupid,” Arthur interrupted.  “I figured out you were under surveillance while I was still interviewin’ you.  But I thought when they bribed my editor to cancel the story that that’d be the end of it.  Why are you still afraid?  Just who’s behind this?”

            “Strong-arms don’t exactly tell you who they’re working for,” Curt sighed.  “They say as little as possible, you know?”  He shook his head.  “Could be any number of people.”

            “It’s probably the Reynolds propaganda machine,” Mandy said.  “What does he call it?  A commission or a committee or something.”

            “The Committee for Cultural Renewal,” Arthur supplied.  “Propaganda, a bit of social engineering, hints of a ‘50s-style blacklist…”  He shook his head.  “Big Brother all the way,” he said, chuckling to himself.  _How is Ray doin’ these days?  Feels like it’s been a while since I heard from him…_   “But whenever anyone tries to write a story on it…it never makes it to the printed page.”

            “So your editor just squashes those stories, too?” Curt asked.

            “No, it’s not Lou.  He seems as confused about it as anyone else.  I think it’s someone in layout, personally,” Arthur said.  “It’s the same way at the other papers, from what I’ve heard.  Stories just vanish.  Usually replaced with adverts for Republican candidates, GOP events, or the products of Committee-endorsed companies or artists.”

            “If they have so much control over what hits the page, then why were they so worried about you learning—” Mandy started, then stopped herself suddenly.

            “I figured out the truth already,” Arthur assured her.  “Not long after talkin’ to you, in fact.  I’m not sure why they bothered tryin’ to silence you in addition to forcing my editor to cancel the story.  Maybe they were afraid I’d take it to television or radio news.”  _Or maybe the bribe came from different quarters than the threats?_

            “Can’t they control those just as easily?”

            “Not really.  The newsreaders go on live; if they read something they’re not supposed to, it’s too late to do anything about it.  But if they’re really ready to commit violence to protect their golden boy’s reputation, I wonder if whoever spilled the story wouldn’t…”  _Am I in danger because I let them know I know?  After the concert, and then directly in talkin’ to Shannon…_

            “If they might kill whoever leaked the story, let’s give it that shithead Max Sass,” Curt suggested, with a laugh.  “The world wouldn’t miss that fucker.”

            “Let’s not play around with anyone’s life,” Mandy sighed.  “Just let it alone.  Let him stay hidden.  Who really cares, anyway?”

            Arthur nodded.  “You’re probably right,” he agreed.  _Based on what I’ve read of the memories of his fans, they’d be crushed to learn what he’s become.  It’s not fair to **them**._

            They remained silent for several minutes, in which Curt took a long drink from a bottle of beer.  “Okay, this is fucking depressing,” he announced as he put the bottle back on the table.  “Have a nice trip home,” he added, pointedly looking at Mandy.

            “Would it kill you to be polite for a change?”

            “That _was_ me being polite.”

            “Honestly, you—”

            “Hey, after you already ate our dinner, why should I owe you anything else?” Curt demanded.

            Mandy sighed, shaking her head, then left the flat without another word.  As soon as the door slammed shut behind her, Curt got out of his chair, walked up beside Arthur’s chair and turned it so they were facing each other.  He lifted Arthur’s chin so they were looking right into each others’ eyes.

            “You _will_ tell me if anyone tries anything on you, right?”

            “Curt, what did she say to you?”

            “Promise me you won’t hide it,” Curt insisted.

            “Yes, of course I promise, but—”

            Arthur’s words were cut off as Curt kissed him passionately.

 

***

 

            Throughout that Sunday, Curt remained surprisingly clingy.  Arthur didn’t mind—how could he mind that?—but it worried him.  It just seemed so unlike his usual behaviour.  _Not that I’ve really known him long enough to know what’s ‘normal’ for him…_

            Mid-afternoon, while Curt was still sleeping off their post-luncheon sex, Arthur carefully slipped out of bed, and headed into the other room, where he had left his satchel.  He had been putting off calling Malcolm all this time, out of guilt or fear or…whatever it was.  But he couldn’t put it off any longer.  He needed to get moving on this book project if he was going to try to publish it.  No matter how the lawsuits went, whether the movie was made or not, the sooner it was ready for publication, the more likely it would be to sell.

            No, books took years to go from accepted submission to publication, even for major, established authors.  For a nobody like Arthur, it would be impossible to strike while the iron was still hot.  However, if he could get a representative slice ready in time, he could publish it as an article in _Rolling Stone_ , and drum up interest in the book’s future release.  But only if he got it ready in time.  It had to come up while this controversy over the movie was still alive, or to coincide with the movie’s release if it ended up being made.

            And that meant he would need certain parties absolutely covered.  The three biggest names were a necessity, and one of them was still in England.  Curt was—supposedly—ready to give his proper answers at any time, and Brian…well, if Shannon ever called back, Arthur could offer to send a written questionnaire, rather than do an interview in person.  That might seem a little less egregious.  However, Arthur had no access to Jack Fairy from New York.  He was going to have to get someone else to interview him, and Malcolm was the most logical choice.

            _I’ll have to call him first thing after work tomorrow.  Then again, unless I get to go home early, that’ll probably be much too late in London.  Perhaps first thing Tuesday morning…_

            Either way, he was going to need to have his questions properly prepared.  Special questions just for Jack Fairy.  And, of course, special questions for Malcolm, Ray, Pearl and Billy, too, because Arthur did not want there to be _any_ chance of anyone else finding out what had passed between himself and the four of them.  For their sake as well as his own:  he had been underage, after all.

            While Arthur was sitting at the table working on the questions, he heard the creak of bedsprings in the other room.  A moment or two later, Curt came padding out of the bedroom in his bare feet, yawning as he paraded around in the buff.

            “What’re you doing?” he asked, peering at Arthur.

            “Just a little work for the book,” Arthur replied, smiling.  “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

            “’Sokay,” Curt said, shrugging.  He moved closer, leaning down to read over Arthur’s shoulder.  “Shit, those are really specific questions.”

            “For the most important names, I thought there should be personalised questions.”

            “Did you write special questions for _me_ , then?”

            Arthur laughed.  “Of course I did.  Though I don’t have to ask some of the more personal ones now,” he added, reaching one hand back to gently stroke whatever he could reach.  Turned out to be a bit of Curt’s hip.

            Curt sighed.  “I suppose you’ve got special questions for Brian, too,” he surmised.

            “Yeah.”  Arthur bit his lip for a moment.  “But even if he agrees to an interview, I don’t know how many of them I’ll actually ask.  It’s a daunting prospect.”

            Curt was silent for a few minutes, then patted him on the shoulder.  “Work on this later,” he said.  “Come back to bed now.”

            “It’s the middle of the afternoon,” Arthur pointed out, but Curt was already walking away again.

            “And bring us a couple of beers while you’re at it,” Curt tossed over his shoulder.

            “Get them yourself!” Arthur retorted.  _I am not your bloody waiter!_

            Curt laughed at that.  But then Arthur could hear the refrigerator being opened, followed by the clink of two bottles being held in one hand.  Well, if Curt had been willing to accept the counter-command, then Arthur should reward him, or he’d surely never do it again.  Or maybe that was just an excuse because going back to bed sounded like a better idea than staying at the dining room table working on the specialised interview questions.

            Still, it would be irresponsible to just leave his work aside…

            As a compromise, Arthur brought his notebook with him as he followed Curt towards the bedroom.

            “Fucking hell, this bed stinks,” Curt’s voice suddenly complained from the bedroom.

            “Can’t imagine why that would be,” Arthur laughed.  He’d lost track of how many times they’d had sex in it in the last 48 hours…

            “Bring some clean sheets from the closet, will ya?” Curt called to him.  “I don’t wanna get back in this while it smells that bad.”

            “Oh, sure.”  Glancing around, Arthur saw a closet door a few paces behind him in the hallway.  _That must be where he keeps his spare linens_.  He opened the closet door, and was amazed to see it jammed full of every imaginable item, from sporting equipment to dirty laundry.  “What in the…?”

            “Hey, no!”  Curt’s voice was almost a shriek.  “The _bedroom_ closet!  Don’t open the one in the hallway!”

            “Too late,” Arthur called back, laughing.  _Is he embarrassed about the mess?_

            Maybe it was the vibrations of a loud voice beside the open closet door, or maybe it was entropy and gravity winning against whatever tenuous bond had held everything static within that space.  Whatever it was, everything spontaneously started spilling out of the closet, raining down on and around Arthur.

            By the time Curt came running up, Arthur had fallen backwards onto his still rather tender rump at the far side of the hall, surrounded by the detritus that had practically exploded out of the closet.  Tennis rackets, balls of all sorts, several umbrellas, at least a week’s worth of dirty laundry, several pairs of women’s pants, a throw rug, some beaten-up books, an Atari game system and dozens of game cartridges, a few ugly pillows and crocheted blankets, and a lot of loose Christmas ornaments lay strewn about the hall around him.

            “Ah, shit!” Curt crouched down beside him.  “You okay?”

            “Yeah, just startled.”  _At least I had the time to shield myself with my notebook…_   “Do you always leave your closet as a booby trap for unwary intruders?” he asked, as he picked up the notebook that was lying protectively above his privates.

            Curt laughed, helping Arthur to his feet.  “No, I just hadn’t got around to cleaning all that crap out of it yet.  Anyway, help me make the bed.”

            “Shouldn’t we clean up this mess first?”

            “That’d take all day!  I’ll do it tomorrow,” Curt replied, turning him towards the bedroom.

_You’re gonna shove it all right back in the bloody closet, aren’t you?_

            Arthur didn’t bother putting up a struggle about it.  He let Curt manoeuvre him back into the bedroom, and while Curt fetched some clean sheets out of the bedroom closet, he set the notebook on the bedside table beside the two bottles of beer.  Despite that it was a king-size bed, changing the sheets wasn’t difficult with the two of them, and soon the old sheets—with their offensive reek of countless hours of two men sweating all over each other and the crusty, sticky remnants of all too much semen—were safely hidden away inside a laundry bin.  It still rather smelled a bit in the bedroom—how had Arthur not noticed that when he first got up?—so Curt lit a small stick of incense to cover it up.

            Curt was already in the process of climbing back into the bed with its nice clean sheets when a thought struck Arthur.  “You know, we both smell almost as bad as those sheets did,” he pointed out.

            Curt froze up, then sighed, and moved away from the bed.  “I guess so,” he agreed glumly.  Then he suddenly grinned.  “Guess we’ll just have to have a nice long shower and get cleaned up,” he concluded, taking Arthur’s hand and leading him into the bathroom.

            Arthur watched uneasily as Curt started running the shower to get the water heated up.  “Who’s goin’ first?” he asked, despite that he knew it was a pointless question.

            Curt didn’t even bother answering.  He just laughed, testing the temperature of the water with one hand.  It must have been to his liking, because he stepped into shower, and pulled Arthur in after him.

            _So much for gettin’ any work done today…_

_…though I’ve never had sex in a shower before.  And they always say it’s important to broaden your horizons…_


	11. Chapter 11

            Fortunately, Monday was a slow news day.  Arthur had several hours in which he didn’t have any work to do.  He took advantage of that time by typing in all those questions he had prepared—as well as finishing up the ones he hadn’t finished preparing yet—and a long letter to Malcolm while he was at it.  Trying to dictate all those questions over the phone would take too long, after all.  Better to send them all in typed form.  As long as he sprang for airmail, it should get there quickly enough.

            As the questions were printing out, Lou approached him, giving Arthur a moment of panic at the thought of being caught using the office printer for personal business.  “The President is addressing Congress right now about some new programme he wants to initiate,” the old man said.  “When the information comes in over the wire, I want you to write up something about it.”

            Arthur nodded.  “What sort of programme is it?”

            Lou shrugged.  “Sounds like an attempt to win a few undecided voters in November.  Nothing that’s likely to be implemented.”

            That probably should have reassured Arthur that the article was unimportant, but instead it worried him greatly.  Reynolds’ attempts to win over the voting public tended to hinge on matters that he found personally offensive:  the evils of foreigners, homosexuals, and wild music.  Some days Arthur felt like he was the personification of everything Reynolds was trying to outlaw.

            He had just returned to his desk to wait for the information from Reuters when his telephone rang.  The person on the other end remained silent for long enough that Arthur had to repeat “Hello?” several times, and had begun to think it was a prank call.

            “I am entirely opposed to the idea,” Shannon Hazelbourne’s voice eventually said, “but Mr. Stone insists that he wants to talk to you.”

            _‘Talk to,’ not ‘be interviewed by’?  Shite, is he pissed that I’m seein’ Curt?_   “If it will make you feel better about it, you can be present for the interview, Miss Hazelbourne,” Arthur offered.  _Safety in numbers and all that.  Plus having a witness should keep him from doing anything I’ll regret._

            “Believe me, I intend to be,” Shannon replied, with a cold chuckle.  “And you will, of course, be signing that non-disclosure agreement.”

            “Of course.  Did you have a time in mind for the interview?”

            “The only opening in Mr. Stone’s schedule is Wednesday evening, between his two radio interviews,” Shannon replied.

            “Then I should meet you at one of the radio stations?” Arthur suggested.

            “The local one, yes,” Shannon replied.

            “Local one?” Arthur repeated, confused.

            Shannon supplied the name and address of the station in question.

            “Yes, but…did you mean the other interview is with a station outside of New York?”

            “Yes, he agreed—against my wishes—to be interviewed over the telephone for a BBC radio programme,” Shannon replied sourly.

            _Doubtless that interview is with Brian Slade, not Tommy Stone…_   “I see,” Arthur replied, not sure what else to say.  “Well, if he’s already doin’ so much talking, I’ll try to keep my questions as short and to the point as possible.”

            “Good.”

            After hanging up the phone, Arthur couldn’t help being more concerned about the prospect of that interview than about the article he would shortly need to write for the _Herald_.  While the delight his teenage self would have felt at the prospect of speaking to Brian Slade was long since extinguished, he couldn’t help feeling a touch overwhelmed at the prospect.  But more than that, he was worried.  A simple interview with no baggage wouldn’t be a problem; if he could interview Senators and the Governor of New Jersey, he could handle a rock star.

            But this _wasn’t_ a simple interview with no baggage.

            On top of the fact that he had humiliated Tommy Stone after that concert at the beginning of February—which had probably cost someone a fair chunk of money to keep quiet—there was the uncomfortable fact that Arthur was currently involved with Tommy’s ex-boyfriend.  Despite that no one had been willing to admit to it, Arthur was quite certain that it had been the break-up with Curt that had prompted Brian to fake his own death on stage, and his appearance at the Death of Glitter concert had proven that Brian’s love for Curt had not been extinguished along with his career.  The question remained to be answered as to whether Brian’s feelings had moved on in the past nine years, or if—like Curt, who sometimes called out for Brian in his sleep—he still carried a mournful torch for the love he had lost.

            If Brian’s feelings hadn’t changed…in that event, if Curt had made it clear to Tommy _why_ he wanted him to agree to the interview…

 

***

 

            President Reynolds’ speech to the joint houses had proven to be exactly what Arthur had expected:  an insistence that it was the general reduction of moral fibre in the youth of America that had led to all of the country’s problems, and a lengthy list of all the ways which Reynolds planned to restore that moral fibre in the course of his second term.  Naturally, the excuse for the speech being to Congress was that he was urging the lawmakers to approve of the bills he was about to have introduced, and for them to act in their home districts to encourage young people to sign on with the Committee for Cultural Renewal, giving up their disgraceful ways of listening to uncouth music and sleeping around.  For a man only in his late 40s, Reynolds was astonishingly old-fashioned.  Or claimed to be, anyway.  He was allegedly quite close to Tommy Stone personally, as well as publicly supporting his squeaky clean career, so surely he couldn’t be quite such a stick-in-the-mud as his public persona.  Unless becoming Tommy Stone had utterly removed every facet of Brian Slade’s personality.

            Due to the sheer predictability of Reynolds’ speech, Arthur had been able to get his article written in record time.  In fact, he could have written it in his sleep.

            Consequently, Arthur was ready to leave the office by four, and asked Lou if it was all right for him to leave a little early.  “I was hopin’ to get back to my flat in time to call someone back in London,” he explained.

            “Yes, go ahead,” Lou told him.  “But after you’re done talking to your mother, do some preliminary work on a follow-up article to this one,” he said, lifting the print-out of Arthur’s article on Reynolds’ speech.

            “I’m not callin’ my mum,” Arthur sighed.  “What do you want in the follow-up?”

            “A general write-up on the Committee for Cultural Renewal, and the impact Reynolds’ new policies will have.”

            Arthur nodded.  _What’s the bloody point?  It’ll never see print, and we both know it._

            Even as early as he left, it was still nearly five by the time Arthur got back to his flat, making it late enough in London that he’d hesitate to call a normal person.  But it was hard to apply the word ‘normal’ to anyone who had been in his set back in the ‘70s, least of all any of the members—former members—of the Flaming Creatures.

            The transatlantic connection was as dodgy as ever, but Malcolm sounded delighted to hear from Arthur.  They hadn’t really talked much since Arthur left the country, after all.  At first he had promised he would call all four of his former flatmates regularly from America, but then he had learned how much it _cost_ to call London from New York, and had quickly reneged on that promise.  They kept in touch by mails well enough, if somewhat irregularly.

            Arthur explained his project to Malcolm, and what he was going to need from him.  “I’m sendin’ several sets of questions to you by airmail,” he went on.  “There’s something important you have to keep in mind, though, when you’re doing the interviews.”

            “What’s that, love?”

            Arthur sighed.  The pet names were cute when they were all five living together and playing a sexual version of musical chairs between the flat’s two beds and one couch.  Now they seemed rather tasteless.  “One of the universities in California wants to keep all the tapes when I’m done with them.  For their oral history archives.”

            “I’m not old enough to be history yet,” Malcolm sighed.

            “That’s not what it means.  It’s just…people are going to listen to them.  And the transcriptions will be available to students and researchers for decades—maybe even centuries.”

            “A bit awe-inspiring.”

            “Yeah, I suppose.”  Leaving a permanent mark on the historical record that could, in theory, be consulted for decades to come had lost its awe years ago.  In part because Arthur had come to realise that most of the countless records the modern era was generating would be eternally ignored, no matter how long they survived.  These interviews—apart from the ones with Brian and Curt—were likely to be just as overlooked as his articles for the _Herald_.  “The thing is, I’d rather we kept it a bit…clean.”

            “You want us to lie and leave out the drugs?  Or are you worried we’re going to be swearing up a storm like your dream lover?”

            Arthur flushed.  _Shite, I should have told him about Curt **first**._   “No, that’s not it.  It’s just…I’d rather none of you mention, ah…I mean, maybe it wouldn’t even come up, but…”

            “Are you ashamed of us now?”

            “No, just embarrassed that I’d slept with five grown men while I was still a teenager.”

            Malcolm coughed slightly.  “ _Four_ ,” he corrected.

            “Curt counts, even if it was only once.”

            “I suppose.”

            “More than my own embarrassment, think of the legal repercussions,” Arthur went on.  “I _was_ underage.  I doubt anyone could—or even would—press charges for it now, but…it won’t do anyone’s reputation any favours if people find out about it.”

            “My dear, I’m running a nightclub now.  I _have_ no reputation anymore.”  There was a lengthy pause in which Arthur wasn’t quite sure how to respond.  “You’re not worried about us,” Malcolm concluded.  “You’re worried about Curt Wild.”

            “Not—not _exclusively_ …”  Even to Arthur, it felt like a pathetic excuse.

            “You do realise that his reputation is hardly in a good place right now anyway.  I don’t know if it’s different over there, but here he’d barely be remembered at all if it weren’t for that lawsuit going on.”

            “He’s been doin’ some live shows in New York from time to time, and he released an album a few years ago, so his career’s not totally dead.  And I think the whole movie thing may end up revivin’ it.”

            Malcolm sighed deeply.  “You’ve become his bloody groupie over there, haven’t you?”

            “No, I…um…actually…I’m kind of…seein’ him right now…” Arthur admitted.

            A long string of very inventive cursing followed, though every time the decibel level rose a little, static interrupted it and prevented Arthur from properly making out the words.  “I suppose it was inevitable,” Malcolm finally said, when he was done swearing.  “Now you’ll never come home, will you?”

            Arthur laughed sadly.  “That depends how long it takes him to get bored with me.”

            “Well, before he does, try and bring him back here sometime, will you?  That might help my place out, if I could have someone with a little name recognition appear on our stage.”

            “I thought you said no one remembered him.”

            “They remember him more than they remember me,” Malcolm replied bitterly.  “And mine is the biggest name I’ve got at the moment.”

            “You still won’t try to patch things up with the others?”

            “They’re the ones who won’t patch things up,” Malcolm insisted.  _In other words, all four of you want to get back together, and assume the others won’t hear of it.  You’re all like little children.  But I couldn’t spend the rest of my life babysittin’ you!_   “I thought it’d be fantastic if maybe I could swing something really amazing, like the return of Brian Slade,” Malcolm continued, making Arthur nearly swallow his own tongue, “but his barrister refuses to pass along any of my messages.”

            “Malcolm, you can stop tryin’,” Arthur assured him.  “There will never be a return of Brian Slade.”

            “What makes you so sure?”

            _Because he’s Tommy Stone now._   “I can’t explain.  But someday—maybe even someday soon—you’ll understand.”

            “Bloody hell, don’t tell me you and—”

            “Don’t even finish that thought, for God’s sake!” Arthur exclaimed.  “But I do know that he’s currently in New York—though I don’t think he lives here—and that he’s…well, not fond of who he used to be.”  He let out a tiny chuckle.  “Actually, I’ll be interviewin’ him in a few days, though the thought leaves me a bit weak in the knees.”

            “I wonder what he’d say if he found out about you and Curt.”

            “I think he already knows,” Arthur sighed.  “That’s one of the reasons I’m so worried about it.”

            Malcolm laughed grimly.  “Maybe you should bring Curt along as a bodyguard.”

            “That might make things even worse.  Still, we won’t be alone together, and once the tape recorder’s goin’, that’ll hopefully keep anything from gettin’ as bad as it might.”  Arthur shook his head, despite that the gesture was fruitless in a telephone conversation.  “Tell me about that lawsuit, though,” he said.  “Any chance it’ll have any effect?”

            “I doubt it,” Malcolm replied.  “I’ve been in talks with the Venus in Furs, to see if they’ll appear here without Brian, and they said the last time they spoke with their barrister, he told them that, realistically, the only way the movie can be shut down entirely is if Devine loses his nerve and cancels his contract with the studio.”

            “From what I’ve heard, Jerry Devine has no fear whatsoever.”

            “Yes, that’s what they were saying,” Malcolm agreed.  “So the barrister’s real goal, at this point, is to force the studio to pay them for the use of their names and life histories.  Technically, that’s an entirely different lawsuit, but he’s hoping he can turn this one into leverage to prevent a second court battle.”

            “I’m sure the studio would be willin’ to pay a lot of money to make the legal trouble disappear,” Arthur sighed.  _I’d rather the **movie** disappeared._

            “I don’t know if they’ll pay as much as the barrister wants,” Malcolm laughed.  “He wants a minimum of a million pounds for Brian, plus all the licensing fees for his music.”

            “I wish I could say he wouldn’t get it, but I think he’ll get it pretty easily.  Before the scandal started, they were offerin’ Curt a quarter of a million dollars to train that actor in how best to imitate his stage presence.”

            “Is that how the lawsuits started?”

            “Yeah, Curt’s manager wanted him to take the job, so she got the studio to send her a copy of the script, thinkin’ that’d make him want to do it.  She didn’t realise just how closely the character was based on him.”  Arthur frowned.  “The thing is, if Brian and the Venus in Furs all let themselves be bought like that…”

            “What?”

            “Even if they’re willin’ to take the studio’s money, Curt won’t be.”  Arthur sighed.  “I don’t think it’ll help his career any if the studio makes that movie using his name without his permission.  Especially after his attempt to sue didn’t stop them.”

            “I don’t think you should be spending so much time worrying about his career, Arthur,” Malcolm replied, sounding almost disappointed.  “Unless you’re planning on marrying him, what does it matter?”

            Arthur’s face felt hot.  He was probably bright red.  “That’s not even an option…” he squeaked.

            Malcolm laughed.  “But it wouldn’t happen even if it was, yes?”

            “Probably not,” Arthur sighed.  _As sexually over-enthusiastic as he’s been, it can’t last.  As soon as whatever thrill he’s gettin’ wears off, he’ll just send me away.  It’s not like we have anything in common.  I’m the most boring bloke on the planet…_

            “So don’t waste your time fretting about his finances unless you get to a point where he’s paying for your life.”

            “Good advice,” Arthur agreed.  _But it’s not his financial situation I’m worried about.  I just want to make sure his career lasts as long as possible, so he’ll always be makin’ more music.  Even if I lose him, I don’t want to lose his music, too.  I want there always to be more Curt Wild songs for me to listen to, no matter how much it might hurt my heart._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It occurs to me at this late stage that those numbers are way too big; no way a movie studio in 1984 would pay a million *pounds* to someone for the rights to his life story. Even in dollars that would be unlikely in '84. (Unless the dollar was actually stronger than the pound in 1984, which seems even less likely...) So, really, I need to go back and figure out more appropriate amounts, and find all the mentions of money from the movie and change them. *Hopefully* I will actually do that in the near future.  
> Hopefully.  
> Because I've been a bit forgetful lately, I thought it best that I put this temporary disclaimer in place that the financials are currently wrong. Just in case anyone sees this chapter first and scoffs at the idea of Brian being paid a million pounds in 1984.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone reads this who happens to know exactly how newspapers were printed in the mid-1980s, I both apologize profusely for the undoubtedly ludicrous errors and humbly request information about what the reality was. (Short of finding physical copies of books on the printing industry that were printed in the mid-80s, I couldn't even figure out how to start researching the question. And that seemed an excessive amount of work for one short scene in a fanfic by a writer as deservedly unpopular as I am.) Though I will admit that I purposefully made it a bit lower tech than one would expect from the '80s, as the Herald is not a wealthy paper, so I figured that everything would be a bit out of date.

            Tuesday morning, Arthur carefully packed his camera in his satchel.  It wasn’t a very good camera, but it would probably be good enough for his purposes.  His article was only half-written, but already he knew there was no way the parts about the Committee for Cultural Renewal would be printed.  The analysis of Reynolds’ new platform was neutral enough that it might be spared, but the rest…no matter how much Lou approved of it, it would vanish between layout and the printed page.

            And he was sick of that.

            This was going to be the last time that happened.  One way or another, Arthur was putting a stop to it.

            The article was finished and approved late in the afternoon.  After it was handed in, Arthur took the back stairs to the layout department, camera in hand.  Layout was in one corner of the lower floor where the presses were located, and there was a catwalk—intended for repairs to the printing press—that gave an excellent vantage point of the entire layout department.

            Using the telephoto lens on his camera, Arthur had just good enough a view to see what was going on at the layout desk.  So he was watching as Lou brought the story down and personally supervised as it was prepared for printing at the bottom corner of the front page.

            Then, after the editor left again, the layout was left alone while the other sections of the paper were being prepared.

            By the time anyone approached the front page’s layout again, Arthur had been crouching on that catwalk long enough that his legs had gone entirely numb.  He wasn’t sure what time it was—he’d have to shift his position too much to see his watch—but the few windows he could see now opened onto the dim glow of a New York City night.

            The man who had gone over to the front page looked over his shoulders frequently—almost obsessively—as he began to adjust the layout.  At first, they were minor adjustments.  Correcting the position of the main headline by a fraction of an inch.  Shifting text around a little.

            But then, after he had been standing there a good five minutes or so, the man turned his attention to Arthur’s article down in the corner.  Carefully, he removed the type for half the article, shifting the rest of the text around and placing a photograph in to mask the deletion.  Arthur carefully photographed him the whole time.

            Once the presses started roaring below him, masking the noise, Arthur slowly got back to his feet, and stumbled along the catwalk towards the stairs, clinging to the railing the whole time.  Taking a tumble from this height would be devastating, even if he missed the furiously moving presses.

            Because Arthur was taking the steps ludicrously slowly, his blood had resumed its normal circulation through his legs and feet by the time he got back upstairs to his desk.  Everyone else had long since gone home, but a new assignment was waiting for him on his desk, a manila folder with a summary of the article Lou wanted him to turn in the next day.  It was nothing important, but it at least implied that he wasn’t in trouble for having vanished for the last several hours of the work day.

 

***

 

            By mid-afternoon on Wednesday, Arthur was already quite nervous about the coming interview.  His article was long since completed and turned in, and rather than beginning work on researching the next piece, he couldn’t help going over and over the questions he was going to ask.  The first thing he’d done, of course, was delete or re-write any question that even hinted at Curt’s existence.  On the slim chance that Tommy was not, in fact, aware of what was currently going on between Arthur and Curt, he didn’t want to do anything to bring the subject up.

            He knew he probably ought not to ask the most burning question—“Why did you do it?”—but he didn’t think he could avoid it.  Even though he was sure he already knew the answer.  After all, the recording would go in an archive somewhere, and future generations would never forgive him for failing to get the answer to that most important question.

            Eventually, he decided to stop wasting his time on the questions, and turned his attention to the non-disclosure agreement.  He had gotten the _Herald_ ’s legal department to provide him with the text of a standard partial non-disclosure agreement.  The _Herald_ usually used them with anonymous sources fearful of their identities being revealed—though why such a fearful individual would then leave a paper trail to prove they were the anonymous source was beyond Arthur’s comprehension—or sources with other secrets they didn’t want hitting the front pages.  However, the standard agreement wasn’t going to do here.  Tommy Stone’s secret—or Brian Slade’s secret, depending on how you wanted to look at it—was bound to be exposed sooner or later, given the resurgence of interest being caused by the legal scandal over the movie.  And once that secret was exposed, Arthur didn’t want to be held back by an outdated non-disclosure agreement.  But if he was too open in the phrasing, Tommy—or more likely Shannon—wouldn’t accept the agreement, and the interview would never go ahead.

            He probably spent longer working on re-writing that agreement than he ever had on one of his articles.  By the time he was printing it out, it was high time for him to leave the office.

            Arthur had timed it very carefully.  So long as he didn’t miss any of his trains, he could return to his flat, change into his most professional-looking clothing, carefully leaving Curt’s pin behind on the shelf, pick up his tape recorder, and still make it to the radio station in time for the interview.

            Of course, missing subway trains—or sometimes missing a stop—was a fact of life, so he had hoped to leave the office early enough to have a train to spare.  But he failed to leave that early.

            He made it back to his flat right on schedule, but missed the train out to the radio station, and had to take a taxi instead.  It cost much more than he could afford, but what choice did he have?  This was a once in a lifetime opportunity, and if he was late, it would likely be taken away from him altogether.

            Taking the taxi actually made him _early_.  However, the interview for the BBC radio programme was already completed, so he was allowed in to see Tommy more than twenty minutes ahead of schedule.

            They were meeting in a disused sound stage.  It looked like it had been used in the heyday of radio, when programmes were recorded before a live audience.  The stage remained in place, though the only furniture in the room now was a table and four chairs, all placed directly in front of the stage.  On the edge of the stage itself was a large case, likely filled with Tommy Stone’s emergency hair supplies, as that ludicrous hairstyle surely required constant care.  Tommy and Shannon both sat at the table.  A closed folder rested in front of Tommy, whose lips twisted into a callous sneer as Arthur entered.

            The room was much too large for the three of them, and Arthur’s every footstep echoed as he crossed to the table, and set his satchel down on the table.  “I really appreciate you allowing me this opp—” he started to say.

            “You promised a non-disclosure agreement,” Shannon reminded him crossly.

            “Yes, it’s just here,” Arthur assured her, getting into his satchel.  Setting his tape recorder on the table to get it out of the way, he pulled out the heavy folder that held the agreement and the questions.  “I thought you’d prefer it if I signed it in your presence,” he explained as he handed the agreement over to Shannon.  That was the sort of thing that solicitors always insisted on, though he wasn’t entirely sure why.

            Shannon, absorbed in looking over the document, didn’t acknowledge having heard him.

            “While she’s thus occupied,” Tommy Stone said, in Brian Slade’s voice, sending an uncomfortable shudder through Arthur, “there is the other matter.”

            “Other matter…?” Arthur repeated, hesitating halfway down into one of the empty chairs.  His stomach began to knot up as he watched Tommy open the folder in front of him.  Within the folder was a small stack of what looked like thick, blank paper.  Tommy slid the top sheet off the stack, pushing it across the table towards Arthur.

            Despite his disinclination to do so, Arthur picked up the thick photo paper, and turned it over so he could see the image on its other side.  To anyone else, it would be an uninteresting photo of a man with shoulder length blond hair—or even a particularly graceless woman—with his arm around the shoulders of the dark-haired man sitting beside him at a bar.

            To Arthur, it was a punch in the stomach.

            _Why the bloody hell does he have a photo of us from the bar of that restaurant?_

            By the time he had finished processing the image, several more photographs were lying where the first one had been.  Picking them up one by one, Arthur saw a distressing summary of their date.  A shot of them sitting at the table, holding hands across the table and gazing into each others’ eyes.  Another of Curt grabbing his knee under the table.  A slightly blurry photo of them snogging in the back of the cab on the way back to Curt’s flat.  Even one of them embracing passionately in the lobby while they waited for the lift.

            _I can’t just submit…_

            Seeing that there were no more photos being slid across the table at him, Arthur finished sitting down, and tried to put on the intimidating kind of smile that mobsters use in the movies.  “That’s it?” he asked.  “I’m surprised you didn’t have your private investigator climb up onto the roof across the way to photograph us in Curt’s flat.”

            Tommy’s intimidating smile looked much more natural than Arthur’s felt.  It looked downright predatory, in fact.  “He’ll only photograph sexual acts involving women,” Tommy said, with a light laugh.  “And you’re a bit too tall to pass for a woman.  Though the rest of you passes well enough.”

            _An odd attempt at an insult from someone who once made a career out of being androgynous._

            Arthur shrugged.  “I think the days of frocks and make-up are in the past for both of us,” he replied.

            For a moment Tommy simply stared at him, one eyebrow raised.  “Exactly what is this project you’re working on?  Why was Curt insisting that I take part in it?”

            _Because he’s a reckless idiot._   “It’s a book, lookin’ back on the glam rock movement.  Reflectin’ on its successes and failures, and what it means to the participants now,” Arthur explained.  “As to Curt’s enthusiasm…”  Arthur spread his hands helplessly.  “I suppose he’s just a romantic.”

            Tommy scowled bitterly.  “You’re taking advantage of him to get this book of yours written,” he concluded.

            “Quite the opposite,” Arthur assured him.

            Tommy frowned.  “He’s…taking advantage…of you…for…publicity…?” he slowly mused aloud.

            Arthur laughed.  “No, that’s not what I meant.”  _Perhaps he’s more of an innocent than I took him for…_

            “Then what _did_ you mean?”

            Arthur cleared his throat.  _If I admit that I only wanted to write the book as an excuse to speak to Curt again, I’ll look like a fool.  And probably enrage him to the point that he’ll never actually go along with the interview…_   “Only that…my interest in Curt pre-dates my interest in writin’ the book…”

            An uneasy hush fell over the room.  Tommy continued to stare at Arthur warily, making him feel as though he was a piece of suspect meat on a butcher’s counter.

            It was Shannon who broke the silence.  “I dislike the way this is phrased,” she said, lowering the agreement.  “It’s like you want to leave yourself a loophole.”

            “No, I—”

            Shannon fixed him with a cold stare, clearly challenging him to deny it.

            _She’s actually rather frightening…_   “You must be aware that the suit over the movie has brought Brian Slade a level of attention he hasn’t had since 1974,” Arthur said, trying to stay calm.  “That bein’ the case, it’s only a matter of time before someone else realises the truth.  If that should happen before the book is completed, I do want to have the freedom to discuss the full reality of the situation, yes.  But I will not be the one to expose it.  That’s the promise held in that agreement.”

            Tommy’s brow creased, and he turned to look at Shannon.  She shook her head.  “Don’t do it,” she advised him, returning the agreement to Arthur.  “It has to be some kind of trick.”

            “Miss Hazelbourne, if I was as cagey as all that, do you really think I’d be wastin’ my time on exposin’ one man’s attempt to forge a new life for himself?” Arthur asked.  “No matter how important Brian Slade was to his fans, and no matter how important Tommy Stone is to _his_ fans, in the grand scheme of things, a single musician is not of any great significance.  If I had the sly skills you suggest, I’d be applyin’ them to bringin’ down the secret tyranny of the Reynolds administration.”

            That made Tommy laugh.  “A poor boy from Manchester would never be able to outwit a man who graduated with honours from an Ivy League school.”

            “My family wasn’t working class,” Arthur informed him.  “We were middle class.”

            “A minor distinction at best.  Did you even attend university?”

            Arthur could only shake his head.  _Please, God, don’t let him ask if I graduated secondary school.  ‘Aving to admit to takin’ a high school equivalency test in America would be…_

            “That’s exactly the sort of thing Martin is trying to fix about this country,” Tommy chortled.  “Imagine a world where the uneducated are the only ones passing along the news to the masses!”

            _He’s on a first-name basis with the President?_   “One can as easily be educated without attendin’ university as one can attend university without becomin’ educated,” Arthur pointed out.  _Wait…didn’t someone famous say something like that?  Shite, I bet I messed up the quote…_

            “There’s no replacement for true education.  What foolishness could have prompted you to elect not to attend university?”

            Arthur smirked a little.  “Ultimately?  You.”  _Or more accurately, you, Curt, my teenage libido, and my father’s old-fashioned moral compass…_

            Tommy’s smug façade faltered.  “That’s…never what I wanted for my fans.”

            “I doubt it would have upset you at the time.”

            Tommy still seemed shaken, prompting Shannon to set a comforting hand on his arm.  The compassion on her face was quite touching, but Arthur couldn’t let the opportunity go to waste.  He turned on the tape recorder, and pushed it a little closer to Tommy.

            “Would you care to go into detail on that point for the record, Mr. Slade?” Arthur asked, gesturing to the tape recorder.  “Honestly, how do you think you would have reacted to the notion that the idea of emulatin’ your career or your lifestyle might have prompted some young people to leave off their education?”

            Tommy glanced at the tape recorder, and shook his head.  “I was a different person then,” he said.  _That must have been for the sake of the unwittin’ future audiences, since that couldn’t be more apparent to **me**._   “It’s difficult to be certain how I would have reacted.  Maybe I wouldn’t have cared, but I should have.  I wasn’t trying to create a generation of ignorant savages.”

            “Given that the law prevented anyone leavin’ school before the age of 17, ‘ignorant savage’ would hardly apply,” Arthur chuckled.  “But perhaps that question was unfair.  How does it affect you to learn it now?  I know I wasn’t the only one who left off his schooling under the spell of glitter.”  _God, I sound like an idiot._

            “It’s upsetting.  I don’t want that to be my legacy, that I lured innocents away from their families and schools into drugs and depravity.”

            _Do I look depraved or drug-addled?_   “I think most people would consider your music to be your legacy, no matter what some of your fans may have done with their lives.”

            Tommy nodded.  “I can live with that.  It’s not…it’s not quite the music I would want to write today, but some of it was quite good.”

            “I think it was much better than the music bein’ produced today,” Arthur assured him.  “Though perhaps it’s unprofessional of me to say so.”  It was hardly journalistic impartiality.  And perhaps somewhat impolitic, considering that Tommy’s new music was lumped into the ‘music being produced today’ category.  _I’d better change the subject before it can get ugly._   “On the subject of the way others might look back at your career, is there anything you’d like to share with the historical record about the current situation, regardin’ your lawsuit against your former manager for his movie script?”

            “Historical record?” Tommy repeated, glaring at Arthur.

            Arthur cleared his throat uncomfortably, and quickly explained about the university in California that wanted the tapes for their archives.  “They can keep the records sealed for your lifetime, if you wish, of course.  Requirin’ a period of silence from the record before it’s made available to researchers is apparently fairly common in oral history.”

            Tommy sighed.  “I’ll decide that after the interview is over.  What was the question?  Something about the lawsuit?”

            “Yes, just…anything you might care to say on the subject at this time.  I know it’s all still up in the air.  I’d be able to ask a more specific question, I’m sure, if I knew what you’d said in the interview you just gave to the BBC.”

            Tommy laughed, a callous sound.  “You would,” he agreed.  “As I told them, I have no choice but to drop the suit.  My barrister is negotiating with the studio now.  Haggling over the price of my life story.”

            “Surely they don’t really need your permission, given their deal with an eye witness.”

            “No, they don’t, as such.”  Tommy released a vicious smile.  “But their film will lack any sense of credibility if they can’t use my songs.  And my barrister is making it very clear to them that they can’t have even one of them if they don’t meet our price.  And the longer the studio tries to haggle, the higher the price will get.”

            “Surely you don’t need the money.”  _You made a bloody fortune last year alone._

            “No, I don’t,” Tommy admitted.  “I just want to make them suffer before they profit off my mistakes.”

            “Mistakes?” Arthur repeated.  _He sees his relationship with Curt as a **mistake**?!_

            Tommy laughed at him.  “I had a beautiful marriage with a woman I adored, and I threw it all away for celebrity, drugs and a barbaric man barely capable of stringing three words together in a sentence.  What could that be but a mistake?”

            _That doesn’t fit Mandy’s version of the end of your marriage.  Not in the least.  And it fits reality even less, considerin’ you never signed the divorce papers._   “I don’t think you’re givin’ Curt his due credit.”

            “You think that because you’re the poor sap under his spell at the moment,” Tommy laughed.  “You’ll regret it soon enough.”

            “I won’t,” Arthur insisted, before his mind could catch up to his mouth.

            Despite his words only moments earlier, Arthur’s protestation of devotion awakened a fearsome expression of jealous rage on Tommy’s face.

            Arthur cleared his throat, and quickly got out his list of questions.  “We seem to be gettin’ a bit off track,” he muttered, trying to find a good question to switch over to.

            Across the table, Tommy smiled sadistically.  His eyes seemed to say ‘what are you so afraid of, little boy?’


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Arthur is a bit (or more than a bit?) OoC in this chapter. As I said back in the summary, this was the second fic I wrote for "Velvet Goldmine," and I didn't have a very good grasp on the characters yet. But too much that I really liked came out of this incident, so...I just left it in. Maybe he was so nervous that he didn't get enough sleep, and it made him act strangely. Exhaustion can hit you in weird ways sometimes...

            Under normal circumstances, the last people Curt would ever invite into his apartment were lawyers.  Lawyers, or maybe cops.  But in this situation…where else were they gonna meet?  Mandy’s apartment was too cluttered, and neither the lawyers nor Alicia had offices big enough to accommodate so many people.   Well, maybe they did, but they were stuffy as hell.

            But it still sucked having two lawyers and his manager sitting at his dining room table.

            “I’ve been saying it from the start,” Alicia kept insisting.  “Your career could use the boost, and the studio’s willing to pay you a lot of money.”

            “And you want your ten percent of that,” Curt sighed.

            “Fifteen.”

            “Ten, fifteen, fuckteen, who gives a shit?!” Curt snapped, making Mandy start giggling.  “I am _not_ about to sign off on that thing!  It’s a total fucking insult!”

            “You must keep in mind, Mr. Wild, that there is no further point to pursuing the lawsuit,” his lawyer said, all too calm.  “Mr. Slade and his band have dropped their suit in England, and are in the process of brokering a deal with the studio.  For you not to do likewise…”  He shook his head.  “It’s a waste of my time and your money.”

            “And it’s going to make the public think you’re a stubborn fool,” Alicia added.

            “Don’t worry about the money,” Mandy interjected.  “Brian’s been sending me money every month for the last ten years.  I won’t touch it for myself, but spending it on Curt is a delicious revenge.”

            “I don’t need—” Curt started.

            “Oh, believe me, if Brian hadn’t caved to the studio, I wouldn’t be offering to foot your bills this time,” Mandy assured him.  “But now it’s personal.  This isn’t just between us and Jerry anymore.  Now it’s between us and Brian.  Completely different rules for _that_ game.”

            “Then you won’t be dropping your suit either, Ms. Slade?” Mandy’s lawyer asked, sounding disappointed.

            “No, I won’t.  But rather than just wasting your time on the current court battle, why don’t you look through the legal precedents for something we can actually use to stop them?”

            “It isn’t that simple,” the lawyer sighed.

            “Aren’t there laws against—what’s it called?—defamation of character?” Curt asked.  _I think that’s the word Arthur used in talking about it…_

            “Well, yes, of course there are,” his lawyer said, “but since this is all based on an eye-witness account…it becomes your word against his.”

            “I think my word’s worth a lot more than Jerry Devine’s,” Curt snarled.

            “If you’re that worried about your character being presented in an unduly malign light,” his lawyer replied, “you should drop the suit and allow me to negotiate with the studio on your behalf.  You could demand creative control over how your actions are portrayed, to ensure that it all meets with your approval.”

            “I’m not letting Devine profit off my love life a second time,” Curt insisted.

            “There really isn’t any way to prevent that outcome,” Mandy’s lawyer told him.

            “Maybe a more grass roots solution,” Mandy suggested.  “I know some people in publishing on the west coast.  I’ll ask them to publish some editorials against the movie.  If the studio views it as a probable financial disaster, they’ll pull the plug.  That or they’ll write it off and only open it on a few screens, forcing it to be a failure, giving them a tax break.”

            “Sounds good,” Curt agreed, “but I don’t know anyone like that to ask for help.”

            Mandy smirked, clearly fighting laughter.  _Arthur wouldn’t be any help on this!  Can’t she see that?_

            “If you’re determined to sabotage the movie in such an indirect manner,” Alicia said, “I suppose you could always appear on television and explain to people why you’re opposed to it.  If you’re convincing enough, maybe you could ensure that no one is willing to put their all into making it, or that no one’s willing to see it.”

            “Yeah, there’s a lot of talk shows filmed in town here,” Curt agreed.  “You could get me on one of those.”

            “Which one do you—” Alicia started to reply, but she was cut off by the doorbell.  She looked at Curt with irritation.  “Did you call out for dinner even though you knew we were meeting here to discuss business?”

            Curt got to his feet, shaking his head.  “Of course not.”

            “Then it must be someone at the wrong door,” Alicia concluded.

            “What the fuck makes you think that?!”

            “Well, everyone you know is already here,” Alicia said, with a bit of a smirk, gesturing at herself and Mandy.

            “Fuck you,” Curt grumbled, then headed for the door.  _Admittedly, I have no idea who’d  be coming by in the middle of the week at this hour, but it’s not like I don’t have any friends!_

            Looking through the peephole, Curt was surprised to see that it was Arthur on the other side.  _Finally, something **good**!_   He opened the door quickly, but Arthur didn’t react.  His eyes were closed, and he seemed to be trembling.

            “Hey…are you okay?”

            Arthur jumped slightly, and shook his head as he entered the apartment.  “I’m sorry I didn’t call first,” he said, his words almost a gurgle.

            “What the fuck happened?” Curt asked as he shut the door again.  The tip of Arthur’s nose was a little red, as were his eyes.  _Has he been **crying**?_

            “I…I couldn’t make it home…I…”

            Gently, Curt pulled him into his arms, stroking his back.  “If it’s that hard to talk about it, don’t even try.”

            “No, I—I have to!  You don’t understand!  He’s got pictures—wouldn’t let me take them—I don’t know what he’s plannin’ to do with them—”  Arthur was suddenly talking all too quickly, as if he couldn’t get out the words unless they all came at once, and his accent was thicker than usual, making him hard to understand.

            “Wait, slow down,” Curt interrupted.  “Who’s got pictures of what?”

            “Pictures of us,” Arthur explained, pulling back a little so he could look into Curt’s eyes.  “From our date.”

            “Fuck.”  _That explains who ‘he’ is…_

            “He’d hired a private detective to follow us!  What—what did you _say_ to him?”

            Curt cleared his throat, and fought not to look away.  “Not much.  I didn’t…I didn’t say anything about _us_ …but he did guess we were…a thing…”  _Shit.  Why does Brian have to butt in and try to ruin something that’s got nothing to do with him?_   “What did he say?”

            Arthur shook his head.  “Not…it wasn’t what he said,” he admitted.  “After I turned on the tape recorder, he was mostly all business.  But…he kept glarin’ at me, and it kept gettin’ worse.  I…I half expected him to pull a knife on me!”  His shoulders started shaking visibly.  “And when those security guards came to get him for his radio interview…I really thought he was about to order them to beat me—maybe even kill me…”

            Curt reached up to stroke Arthur’s cheek.  “You didn’t need to be so worried.  Brian’s not the violent type.  He was just trying to get to you.”

            Arthur nodded.  “I did my best to maintain a professional appearance, but…as soon as he was gone…I…I couldn’t hold on…”

            “As long as you didn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing you upset, that’s what’s important,” Curt assured him.  “That failure’s gonna eat at him, I promise you.”  _Brian’s always been one to brood over his failures._

            Arthur nodded, but couldn’t reply, as he had started crying again.

            “What—what’s wrong?” Mandy’s voice suddenly asked from behind Curt.

            Curt glanced over his shoulder at her as she came up, her eyes glued to Arthur’s trembling frame.  “He just interviewed Brian for his book,” Curt told her quietly.

            “Oh, you poor thing!” Mandy exclaimed, giving Arthur such a tight hug that it made Curt a little uncomfortable.

            From the direction of the dining room, Curt could hear low voices as the lawyers and Alicia talked.  _Probably trying to devise a way to trick us into changing our minds._   “Can you get him into the bedroom discreetly?” Curt asked Mandy.  “I don’t want them seeing him here like this.  Once you’re out of sight, I’ll get rid of them,” he added, looking up at Arthur.

            Arthur nodded meekly— _too_ meekly!—and let Mandy steer him out of the kitchen, using the laundry room to bypass the door that led to the dining room.  Curt made his way back to the dining room, and as soon as he heard the bedroom door shutting, he turned a cold smile at the suits.  “Something’s come up,” he said, “and you’re gonna have to go now.”

            “But no decisions have been reached,” his lawyer insisted.

            “Yeah, they have.  You’re gonna look for precedents that’ll let us fight this thing in another way.  Any way that’ll work.  Now scram.”

            Alicia scowled at him, even as the lawyers made their offended way out of the apartment.  “That’s no way to talk to a legal professional,” she told him.  “Do you have any idea how much they’re charging you by the hour?”

            “Yeah, I’ve seen the price sheet,” Curt sighed.  “But this is more important.”

            “What could _possibly_ be more important?” Alicia countered.  “Just who was that at the door?”

            “My boyfriend.”

            “Oh.  I didn’t realize you were seeing anyone right now.”

            “It hasn’t been going on long,” Curt admitted.

            “But it’s serious?”

            “Serious enough.”

            Alicia shrugged.  “All right, then.  You could have just _said_ so.”

            “I wasn’t gonna tell those sharks that I’ve got a boyfriend,” Curt sighed.  “Then they’d just write me off as a fag and do nothing.”

            Alicia frowned.  “I wish that was just paranoia.”  She shook her head.  “I’ll see what I can do about booking you some appearances on talk shows.  Television’s going to be hard to arrange, though.  Won’t radio do?”

            “Radio isn’t gonna reach as many people.  Besides, I don’t think I’m as effective on the radio.”  _My last appearance on the radio didn’t do shit, after all._

            “Maybe not,” Alicia agreed.

            As soon as she was gone, Curt hurried into the bedroom.  Arthur was sitting on the side of the bed, and Mandy was sitting next to him, rubbing his back in a comforting manner.  She smiled at Curt weakly as he arrived, then got to her feet.  “I’ll let myself out,” she said, heading towards him.  At the door, she paused to lean in close to Curt’s ear.  “Sounds like Brian really gave him the works,” she whispered.  “You might want to just help him get to sleep.  He’ll probably be fine in the morning.”

            Shutting the bedroom door—just in case—Curt moved over and sat down on the bed next to Arthur, slipping his arm around him in the process.  Arthur leaned into the embrace, and Curt could feel his whole body quivering against his side.  “I’m sorry,” Curt said.  “I should have known Brian would pull this kind of shit.”  _If I ever get my hands on that motherfucker again, he’s gonna regret this…_

            “It’s my fault,” Arthur insisted, his voice little more than a whimper.  “I should ‘ave thought of something else.  Something that didn’t involve him.”  He shook his head again.  “No, I…I shouldn’t even let this bother me…”

            “Hey, don’t blame yourself for something like that!” Curt insisted, reaching across with his other hand to take hold of Arthur’s hands reassuringly.  “It’s all Brian’s fault.  He’s got some serious ways of fucking with people.  Little comments that just build up over time, just an insulting word here or a patronizing remark there, and the next thing you know you’re going on fucking rampage.”  _Or maybe that’s just me._

            Arthur barely managed to produce a chuckle.  “I’m not the rampagin’ type,” he said.

            “Yeah, I guess not.”  _That’s for the best.  Last thing I need is someone else like me._   They sat in silence for a minute or two, then Curt sighed.  “Okay, the best thing to do is just get your mind on something else.  Have you eaten?”

            Arthur shook his head.  “I don’t think I can stomach food right now.”

            “Well, we’ll just get you cheered up by the time it can get here, then,” Curt said.

            “I…I don’t…no, really…”

            Curt bit his lip.  There wasn’t much point in avoiding the reality of it, was there?  “Okay, look, all I can think of is giving you food, booze or dick.”  Arthur started making a strange wheezing noise.  “Which one is gonna make you feel better?”

            Arthur’s wheezes turned into weak chuckles.  “Never be a nurse,” he said.  “Your bedside manner is appalling.”

            “Lucky I’m not planning on a career change, then.  Seriously, food, drink or sex?”

            Arthur shook his head.  “I don’t really want any of them right now.  Can’t we just…talk?”

            “Arthur, you can barely form a sentence without crying.  Talking is not a good idea,” Curt sighed.  “C’mon, let’s go into the other room.  I’ll put a movie on, call for a pizza, and get us some beers.  By the time the movie’s over, you’ll be feeling better.”  _Hopefully_.

 

***

 

            Arthur was pretty much a wreck all day Thursday.  Curt had done what he could, but that interview hadn’t been the sort of thing that could be recovered from so quickly.  As a result, he hadn’t been able to get much sleep, which left him capable of little more than stumbling around the office like an idiot the next day.

            On the other hand, getting to spend the evening and night in Curt’s flat _without_ it turning into crazed sexual abandon was a welcome change of pace.  Once Arthur had managed to calm down a little, they had spent a long time just talking.  Favourite books, movies, television programmes…little ways of getting to know each other better that they hadn’t bothered with up until now.  Most of the books that had been shoved in Curt’s closet were detective novels, but after a few beers and an oozingly sappy romantic movie, Curt had admitted—with some obvious chagrin—to having a secret passion for Jane Austen novels.  “Even the lowlifes are so classy,” he had explained.  “My brother used to make me do all his homework, and when I read one for his English class…I was just blown away by it.  I didn’t know people could be like that.  All polite and nice…and even scum like Willoughby got to live happily ever after with a rich wife he didn’t deserve.  I’d never want to live that fancy drawing room lifestyle, but…after getting a taste of it, even just in print, I was never gonna settle for staying in a fucking trailer park the rest of my life.  If Willoughby could get a great life after he’d done such terrible stuff, then I knew _I_ could get an even better life if I didn’t do any of the shit he did.”  He had laughed then.  “At least, that’s what I thought when I was ten.  I mean, I’ve done shit that woulda made ol’ Jane drop dead of shock, but…it’s a different world, you know?  And I always told myself if I got a girl pregnant I’d be responsible about it.  Lucky it never happened.”

            “You _did_ get a better life,” Arthur had assured him, with a gentle squeeze of the arm he had around Curt’s waist, “ _and_ you deserved it.”

            Of course, things had continued getting even more affectionate from there, but somehow it had never quite turned sexual.  Arthur was _glad_ it hadn’t led to the same empty sexual thrill all their other nights together had; it had encouraged him to think that maybe—if he was lucky—Curt’s feelings for him might someday turn from lust into love.  A futile dream, perhaps, but one he found himself clinging to as the days dragged on.

            At work, everything was increasingly politics.  If his assignments weren’t about the election, then they were the latest policy of the mayor, governor or president, or someone protesting same.  The protest stories rarely made it past that wanker in layout, though.  Arthur found himself working all too hard at trying to phrase his stories in such a way that they wouldn’t sound the censorship alarms.  He wasn’t sure he could count on the _Herald_ ’s readers to pick up on the message between the lines, but they stood a better chance of learning the true news from veiled subtext than from stories they never ended up seeing.

            Every time one of his stories vanished in layout, he had to remind himself that it was only a few days more.  Once his photos came back, he’d finally be able to do something about it.

            Arthur was able to pick up his photos during his lunch break on Wednesday, and they had turned out much better than he was expecting.  The face of the perpetrator was clearly visible in several shots, complete with his nervous, paranoid expression.

            Salvaging the deleted material about the Committee for Cultural Renewal, Arthur wrote up an article about the committee and how stories on it tended to vanish before they hit the page, filling out the story with the description of the man in layout deleting things without editorial permission.  Selecting several of the best photos, he took the story, pictures and negatives to Lou’s office.

            The elderly editor looked surprised to see Arthur entering his office.  “You can’t have finished your assignment,” Lou said.  His current assignment was a particularly dry piece on Reynolds’ pre-presidential career.  _Mindless busy-work; anyone who cares what Martin Reynolds did before he became President already knows._   “You haven’t even had time to research it yet.”

            “I wrote a different piece first.  On spec, you might say.”  Arthur handed him the article and photos, and watched carefully as Lou read over the article and stared hard at the photos.

            “So this is where you disappeared to last week,” he said, as he lowered the article again.

            Arthur waited patiently for Lou to continue.  Or he tried to, but his patience seemed to be growing thin.  _Maybe Curt’s rubbin’ off on me._   “Is that all you have to say?”

            “I’m not sure if there’s much point to saying anything else,” Lou sighed.  “I can fire this fellow easily enough, but they may have more than one plant.”

            “They probably do,” Arthur agreed.  _That bloke in layout wouldn’t have had any idea you had me lookin’ for Brian Slade’s current whereabouts…_

            “Then how is the story going to get printed without their interference?” Lou asked.

            Arthur bit his lip.  He hadn’t really stopped to think about that part.  “Can’t you send it to layout at the last minute?”

            “I suppose so.  But that’s a temporary fix at best.  I can’t personally watch over the whole layout process every single day.”

            Arthur nodded uncomfortably.

            “For the moment, we’ll get this printed and see what happens,” Lou sighed.  “But get to work on that story I assigned you.  It needs to run before the New York primary.”

            _Right, because a refresher course on what Reynolds did in the Senate is really gonna change the voters’ minds about him._


	14. Chapter 14

            Alicia had a set of lungs that any singer would envy.  She had been talking non-stop for the last hour.  More lecturing than talking, really.  At least it was over the phone, so she couldn’t see that Curt was playing video games with the sound off rather than listening to her.  Not that he really thought he was likely to beat his own high score at _Space Invaders_.  He just wanted to do _something_ other than merely listen to her yammer at him.

            She didn’t stop giving him instruction after instruction even after her kid started whining at her to make dinner.  Probably wouldn’t have stopped at all if Curt’s doorbell hadn’t rung.

            “Someone’s at the door,” Curt told her.  “I gotta go.”

            “You can go answer the door, but then you come right back.  I am _not_ done,” Alicia insisted.

            _I needed a manager.  How did I end up with a new mother?_   Curt got to his feet and headed for the door, trying not to grumble under his breath.  _At least this one doesn’t want to torture me for fucking guys…_

            To Curt’s surprise, it was Arthur on the other side of the door.  “I tried to call, but the line was busy,” Arthur explained.

            “Yeah, my manager won’t shut up,” Curt sighed.  “C’mon in.”

            Curt headed back into the TV room without stopping to think about what Arthur was going to see when he got in there.  The Atari was still on…

            _But he already saw it when the closet exploded.  Maybe he doesn’t care…but I shoulda had him wait in the dining room anyway.  Fuck._

            As soon as he reached the phone, he picked up the receiver again.  “Sorry, I gotta go for real,” Curt said.  “My boyfriend’s here.”

            Alicia sighed deeply on the other end of the line.  “All right, I won’t intrude on your love life, but for God’s sake, don’t tell anyone at the studio that you’re involved with another man!  That’s not going to help your case _or_ your comeback!”

            “Yeah, yeah.”  _Like I need anyone to tell me that?_

            As Curt hung up the phone, he could see that Arthur was smiling, but it didn’t look like he was laughing at the game.  Still, Curt turned it off immediately.  Just in case.  Then he finally turned to give Arthur his full attention.  “So what’s up?”  _At least he’s not upset again…_

            “I know it’s short notice, but I hoped maybe we could do something nice to celebrate,” Arthur said, with that timid smile that was such a huge turn-on.

            “You’ve got something to celebrate, too?”

            Arthur looked perplexed for a moment.  “Did something happen?”

            “You first,” Curt insisted.

            “I told you how someone was cuttin’ a lot of my stories before they hit the page, right?  Well…I managed to get one past them.  A full, uncut article on the Committee for Cultural Renewal and the censorship of the media will be hittin’ the streets tomorrow morning.”

            “That’s great!”  _Did he ever tell me about that?_

            “What was your news?”

            “Alicia got that TV interview lined up for me.  Big national program, too.  That’s why she was on the phone so long; telling me what I should and shouldn’t say.”  Curt sighed, shaking his head.  “No idea why she wanted to go through it all _today_.  The interview’s not until next week.”

            “Maybe she plans to repeat it every day between now and then, to make sure you don’t forget,” Arthur suggested, with a badly suppressed grin.

            “Yeah, that wouldn’t surprise me,” Curt said, trying not to grimace.

            “But it’s great that she got the interview for you,” Arthur went on, moving closer to him.  “We definitely need to celebrate,” he added, leaning in for a kiss.

            “Let me get on less crappy clothes, and we’ll go out somewhere nice for dinner,” Curt said.

            “Out to—but after the last time…!”

            “We’ll be discreet this time,” Curt promised, giving him another kiss.  “No public kissing, no fondling, not much hand-holding…”

            “No hand-holding at all,” Arthur insisted.  “That’s something that will really alert people.”

            Curt sighed.  “I miss the ‘70s,” he muttered, as he headed back into his bedroom to change.  “What the fuck happened to make everyone turn into judgmental, suit-wearing assholes just because the decade changed?”

            “Martin Reynolds happened,” Arthur answered from behind him, even though Curt had really only been thinking aloud.  “In this country, anyway.  Margaret Thatcher already paved the way for him back home,” he added.

            “Yeah, but they couldn’t have gotten elected in the first place if _something_ hadn’t changed!”  Curt pulled off his grimy shirt and started looking for a nicer one in the closet.  “I mean, it’s not like the ‘60s turned into the ‘70s overnight.  Everyone kept protesting Vietnam until it ended, even though everything else had changed.”

            Arthur shrugged.  “Well, I don’t know, then.”  Curt pulled on a clean shirt, a light green button-down.  “How did you keep from gettin’ drafted?” Arthur suddenly asked, looking at Curt curiously.

            Curt laughed as he started doing up his buttons.  “I didn’t.  But when I went in for the physical, of course they had my whole medical record in front of them, including that shit my parents pulled on me.  So they look at the reason I got those shock treatments, look at me and ask if I still fuck men.”  He chuckled, shaking his head.  “I didn’t even think about why they were asking, you know?  I got pissed off at them for trying to probe into my private life, and when they started getting outraged at me yelling at them, I not only _proudly_ informed them that I still fucked men, I offered—or maybe threatened—to fuck _them_ if they didn’t stop giving me those disgusted looks.”

            “Uh…”

            “Hey, getting it up the ass is exactly what those stiff shirts needed,” Curt assured him.  “Not that I wanted to fuck a room full of ugly old guys, believe me.”  He laughed.  “Anyway, of course they kicked me out, ‘cause there are rules against gays serving in the army.  I was kinda pissed about being called gay when I also liked to fuck girls, but since I really didn’t want to get shipped off to Vietnam, I didn’t complain about it.”

            “I’m a little surprised they believed you,” Arthur commented.  “I’d have thought people tried to claim that they were gay all the time as a way to get out of serving.”

            “Yeah, lots of guys tried that, but most of ‘em didn’t have a medical report on file saying that they’d been sucking off their older brother in the john.”  Curt grimaced, trying not to think about _that_.  “But it did occur to me that they might follow me and see if I was telling the truth.  Looking back on it, that was a stupid thing to think, but I was scared of being sent off to war.”  He shrugged.  “So I went to a gay bar and got laid a couple times, just to make sure they’d believe me.”

            Arthur chuckled.  “Such a mighty sacrifice,” he laughed.

            “Yeah, I really suffered for my freedom,” Curt agreed, trying not to let his laughter overpower his words.  “Anyway, forget all that shit.  Where do you want to go for dinner?”

            Arthur shrugged.  “Anyplace is fine, really.”

            “You really have to start voicing your opinions,” Curt sighed.  _There’s no way he doesn’t have tastes._   “Do you want to go to a movie afterwards?”

            “Sure.  Is anything playing?”

            Curt shrugged.  “Probably.  I don’t know; I’ve been too preoccupied lately.  Wait…we gotta be careful not to go to something from the studio trying to make that movie about me and Brian…”

            “Maybe a movie’s too risky,” Arthur said.  “Let’s worry about it at dinner.”

            “Yeah, good idea.”  Curt paused a moment, looking over Arthur’s clothes.  Navy blue knit shirt—more than a bit worn around the collar—and khakis.  “Okay, before we go to dinner, we’re going shopping.”

            “We’re what?”

            “I figured where I wanna go, but you can’t go looking like that.”

            Arthur looked down at his clothes.  “What’s wrong with—where are we goin’?”

            “It’s kind of a club.  But you look like a married guy taking his trash out.”

            “I don’t look _that_ bad,” Arthur insisted.

            “Well, you don’t have the right look to go to this place, lemme tell ya.”  _And I don’t wanna be seen there with anyone wearing polyester._   “Anyway, we’ll get you a couple of outfits while we’re at it.”

            “Why?” Arthur asked, even as he let Curt turn him towards the door.

            “So you don’t have to go running back to your own apartment to get a fresh change of clothes every time you’re gonna stay over,” Curt explained, fondling his ass as he did so.

            Arthur blushed.  “But…I can’t afford—”

            “I’ll pay.”

            “But!”

            “Call it a loan if it makes you feel better about it,” Curt sighed.  _Considering you won’t let me come over to your place because you’re too poor to afford a decent apartment, what are you complaining about when I wanna buy you something nice?_

            Arthur kept complaining most of the way down to the lobby.  Only once they were out in public did he finally shut up.  It wasn’t too far to the nearest department store by subway, so they were already looking at clothes within half an hour.  Arthur kept gravitating to the cheapest clothes in the most drab colors.  _And then he wonders why it took me more than a week to figure out where I’d seen him before!  How was I supposed to equate bad hair, drab navy and khakis with teased-up hair with a hint of blue, a glittery purple shirt and bellbottoms?_

            Arthur insisted that he couldn’t wear jeans to work, but he did at least agree to a nice black pair to wear to the club.  He put up less of a fuss about the colorful shirts, but any fuss at all was too much in Curt’s opinion.  He also objected—again!—to Curt paying.  And yet, all his objections—apart from the one about the dress code at his office—felt hollow, as if he was only saying them out of a sense of pride.  Curt could understand that, so he didn’t let it get to him.

            Once they were done shopping, they took the subway back to Curt’s apartment, and Curt watched as Arthur changed into the new jeans and the pale purple shirt.  _Pity he wouldn’t go for the pink one.  He’d look great in pink…_

            While Arthur was changing, Curt also called for a cab.  It was the middle of the week, after all.  But he didn’t let his eyes stray from Arthur’s pretty body.  Because why would he deprive himself of a good show?

            The cab got there surprisingly quickly, and soon they were on their way to the club.  It was a really old jazz club in Harlem; the place was extremely proud of the fact that it had been founded back in the ‘teens.  Admittedly, jazz wasn’t exactly Curt’s scene, but they always had live music playing, and he loved the energy and enthusiasm the musicians always put into their performances.  It was a good place to go on a date, too; no one in there cared what anyone else was doing, and they never got judgmental.  Not unless you did something shitty, anyway.

            Curt was glad to see who was performing tonight.  On the weekends, it was usually new artists, the would-be greats.  They could be all over the place.  Weekdays, sometimes it was new faces, and sometimes it was the has-beens, who kept playing the old jazz and blues that had inspired rock in the first place.  Tonight was one of those nights.  Better, these guys were the types who had worked with all the legends back in the ‘30s and ‘40s, and were by now pretty legendary themselves.

            They hadn’t been seated very long before the band on stage took a brief break.  While they were headed out, Cal noticed Curt, and came over to sit down at their booth for a chat.  Arthur looked more than a little alarmed to have a strange man—a black man in his 60s, no less—suddenly just sit down beside Curt.  And maybe Curt laughed a little at his wide-eyed look of alarm before he said anything.

            “This is Calvin Jones,” he explained, making Arthur’s mouth pop open a little.  “He’s helped me out sometimes.”  Then Curt turned to look at Cal, and gestured towards Arthur.  “Cal, this is Arthur, my…friend.”  Cal wasn’t the judgmental type, but still…telling a guy his father’s age that he had a boyfriend was not something Curt was comfortable with.

            From the gentle laugh, Cal knew what Curt wasn’t saying anyway.  Well, how could he not?  Of course he drawled a “Pleased to meet you,” before going on with the conversation he’d have had with Curt anyway.  Mostly about introducing him to some new talent who seemed like they were a bit more cut out for rock than jazz.  Curt promised he’d come by over the weekend to hear them, and Cal left again, heading back to the stage.

            Of course, since Cal told the others he’d run into Curt, everyone else in the band had to stop by and say something.  By the time the last one left, Arthur was chuckling under his breath.  “What’s so funny?” Curt asked, wary of an unpleasant answer.

            “You didn’t have to bring me here to impress me,” Arthur said, with a wide smile.  “You just have to be yourself to do that.”

            “That wasn’t why I chose this place,” Curt insisted.  But there was _no way_ he was blushing.  It was just hot in there, that’s all.  Curt wasn’t the type to blush.  “Wait ‘til the food gets here.  They serve some of the best food in town.”

            “I’m sure they do,” Arthur agreed, with that small, tight smile that said he was lying through his fucking teeth.

            Sometimes, that smile made Curt want to smack him, but somehow it didn’t bother Curt tonight.  Probably just because they were gonna have lots of hot sex when they got back home.

            What other reason could there be?


	15. Chapter 15

            Given they had taken the risk of going out to celebrate the night before, Arthur was relieved to pick up that morning’s edition of the _Herald_ and see that his story about the Committee for Cultural Renewal truly had been printed in its entirety.  Unsurprisingly, the man in layout who had been sabotaging the paper hadn’t shown up to work that morning.

            What did surprise him, though, was that Arthur seemed to be getting the silent treatment from everyone else in the office.  No one approached him all day, and if he started over to two co-workers already in conversation with each other, they would fall silent and walk off before he could reach them.

            _Are they all on Reynolds’ side, or did I break some unwritten rule by revealing the censorship that had been going on right under our noses?_

            At the end of the day, Arthur could only turn in his article on Lou’s desk—though Lou himself had stepped out somewhere—and leave, not having spoken a word since he left Curt’s flat.

            The whole trip home, Arthur had to fight the urge to go back to Curt’s flat instead of his own.  But no matter how much he wanted to go back to Curt’s spacious flat—and the pleasures of his bed—there was no point in letting himself get too used to that life.  Whether Curt managed to shut down that movie or not, his career was about to get a major boost.  Once he was back on top again, he’d surely forget about Arthur.  There were better looking and far more interesting people out there, after all.

            The next morning, Arthur felt as though people were looking at him in the subway—not necessarily _staring_ , as such, but definitely looking in a way that they never had before.  It left the skin on his arms prickling, and the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end.

            His suspicion that something was amiss was doubly confirmed on Arthur’s arrival at work.  First, as he passed through the lobby, he thought he heard snickering, though no matter which way he turned, the sound died away, and he couldn’t identify the culprit, if a culprit there was.  Second, when he got to his desk, he found a tabloid taped to the monitor of his computer.

            On the front page of the tabloid, printed in full colour, was one of the photos Tommy Stone had shown him.

            The headline said “Zac Dumped — Curt Wild Has a New Boyfriend!”

            Arthur could only stand there and stare at it until his knees buckled and he collapsed into his chair.  The impact with the less than well-padded chair brought him back to his senses a bit, giving him the presence of mind to yank the tabloid down off the monitor.

            The picture on the front was from the restaurant, showing them sitting at their table, holding hands and gazing into each others’ eyes.  Below the headline were the words “More Photos Inside!  Story on page 3!”

            Arthur’s hands were shaking as he flipped through to the first page of the story.  It started out with the photo of them at the bar, and right at the beginning of the article, in big, Italicized text, it warned that the story might be upsetting to some readers, and that the photos were graphic.  Horrified, Arthur checked ahead, but there weren’t actually any graphic photos:  just variations on the same kissing photos Tommy had shown him.

            With the fear of sexual photos allayed, Arthur scanned the text of the article.  For the most part, it was clear they had no real information.  They couldn’t say how Arthur and Curt had met— _Thank God for small favours!_ —and they didn’t know how long they had been involved, or if it was serious, or merely sexual.  But they _did_ give Arthur’s full name, and identified his place of employment.

            As soon as he finished looking through the article, Arthur folded up the tabloid and stuck it in his satchel.  _Just in case no one’s told Curt._

            He hadn’t put it away long when Lou came by his desk and asked him to prepare a quick summary piece on the positions of the major candidates, just as a reminder before the New York primary elections next week.

            After the horror of the tabloid, working on a simple election piece was a relief, but the feeling didn’t last.  Every time anyone walked past his desk, they started laughing.  By noon, he couldn’t stand it, and headed out of the building to get something to eat, rather than just buy something at the building’s cafeteria.

            With no time to get anywhere further away, he found himself heading back to Al’s Bar.  But he got even worse treatment there than he had at the office:  staring, snickering and even the occasional hurled epithet.  He was sitting in the back corner, but that didn’t seem to do much to keep people from noticing him.

            Though she wasn’t the one who had taken his order, Jennifer was the one who brought Arthur his food.  “I saw the tabloids this morning,” she said, looking at him with pity.

            “Seems like everyone saw them,” Arthur sighed.

            “Don’t let them get you down,” Jennifer replied, with a comforting pat of her hand on his shoulder.  “It’s better that people know the truth, so you don’t end up accidentally hurting anyone.”

            _Was that supposed to be kind, or just a knife in my back?_

            Jennifer soon went away again, and Arthur ate as quickly as possible so he could get back to work.  At least in the office they were only laughing at him.

            He finished his article in record time, and by two o’clock he had done all the polishing he felt he could, so he took it to Lou’s office.  After handing it in, Arthur shut his eyes, closing out everything around him.  _Would it be givin’ up?  Is it what they want me to do?_

            “Is something wrong?”

            Lou’s voice jarred him back from his thoughts, and Arthur smiled weakly as he opened his eyes again.

            “You…you do know what I found on my desk this morning, surely.”

            Lou frowned.  “I think I can guess.”

            “I…I don’t know how much work I can get done until things calm down and people forget about it,” Arthur admitted.  “I know it’s short notice, but I’ve got a lot of vacation days stored up.  I’d like to take a week off.”

            “Probably a good idea,” Lou agreed.  “A week, starting tomorrow.”  He paused, and cleared his throat.  “But you can go ahead and leave early today.  Avoid the rush hour crowds on the subway.”

            “Thanks.”

            Arthur quickly picked up his satchel and left the office, running most of the way to the subway station.  Even though neither the station nor the train was crowded, he could still feel people staring at him the whole time.

            Getting back to his flat was no better.  A different tabloid was taped to his front door, this time showing a picture he hadn’t seen before, of them standing on the street trying to hail a cab outside Curt’s flat.  The article didn’t seem substantially different, however, and contained no additional information.

            As soon as the door was shut behind him, Arthur called Curt.  The answering machine picked up.  “Curt, are you there?  It’s Arthur.”  He wasn’t quite sure how to talk to a machine.  “We need to talk.  It’s impor—”

            There was a hiss of static, then a loud click.  “I’m here,” Curt’s voice said.  “I’d been wondering if you’d call or just come over.”

            “So you know about it.”

            “Yeah, Alicia called me first thing.  I tried calling you to warn you not to go to work, but you’d already left.”

            Arthur shut his eyes, breathing heavily, and fighting the sudden urge to cry as he explained what his day had been like.  “I…I wasn’t sure what to do…”

            “People have short memories,” Curt promised.  “This’ll blow over, as long as we don’t do anything stupid.  But you probably shouldn’t stay there.  I bet your building’s got crap security.”

            “Yours doesn’t seem that secure, either,” Arthur pointed out.

            “Well, yeah, probably not, but everyone in my building already knew about what kind of guy I was, and they don’t give a shit.  There’s no chance any of them are gonna attack us.  Can you say that about the people in _your_ building?”

            Arthur swallowed heavily and shook his head.  “No,” he said, feeling his cheeks heat up as he realized how stupid it was to use a gesture to answer in a telephone conversation.

            “Right, so pack up everything you might need for the next week or so, and I’ll grab a taxi and come get you.”  There was a bit of a pause.  “Uh, where do you live, anyway?”

            Curt’s uncertainty gave Arthur a welcome chuckle, and he quickly told Curt his address.  The information made Curt swear rather inventively, even for him.  “Shit, you live in a terrible neighbourhood,” he added.

            “It’s not that bad.”

            “Yeah, it is.”  Curt sighed.  “Is there a phone at the door?”

            “No, just a lock.”

            “All right, you’ll have to wait just inside the door for me, then.  From here, at this time of day, it’ll probably take twenty, maybe thirty minutes.  Can you be ready by then?”

            “Yeah, I’ll be ready,” Arthur agreed.  _I don’t have that much to pack, after all._

            It only took Arthur about ten minutes to pack all his clothes in his suitcase.  He also packed all the tapes, preliminary transcripts, and his tape recorder, as well as his camera.  Beyond that, there wasn’t really anything else to pack.  No point in taking his records; it seemed impossible that he could have anything that Curt didn’t have.

 

***

 

            Despite repeated assurances to the contrary, Arthur did not feel much better on awaking in the morning.  There was a certain amount of warm comfort to waking up in Curt’s arms, of course, but beyond that, he was only aware of a cold lump of dread in his gut when he thought of the previous day’s events.

            Every tabloid in town had been given an ‘exclusive’ story about Curt Wild’s new boyfriend, ‘a radical reporter for a paper on the brink of bankruptcy.’  None of them had identified their source, naturally, but given who had paid to have those photographs taken, Arthur had no doubts about the identity of the source.  The only question was his precise motivation in having exposed their relationship, but Arthur couldn’t really force himself to care.  Whether some tiny remaining fragment of Brian Slade within Tommy Stone had been jealous, or whether he was acting in vengeance for the inconvenience to Martin Reynolds’ propaganda machine…it didn’t matter.

            The only thing that mattered was that now Arthur was exposed to the world—or at least to the city—and a laughingstock.

            Over breakfast, Curt noticed that Arthur was still feeling down, and asked him what was wrong.  “How can you have to ask that?” was the only response Arthur could give.

            “I told you, it’ll blow over,” Curt assured him.  “Believe me, I’ve been through this more times than I can count.”  He shook his head.  “Because of Brian, the tabloids learned they could sell a lot of papers by printing pictures of me with another man.  For years, every time I even spoke to any other man where people could see me, they assumed it was love, and printed up stories about it.”

            “Yeah, but this isn’t just talkin’—they had pictures of us kissin’!”

            “So what?  As long as they don’t get any more of ‘em, they’ll get bored of us real quick.  They can’t just keep printing the same photos over and over again.  People aren’t _that_ stupid.  And this kind of story _needs_ art.”

            “But…I…”

            “Really, they’ll get bored and move on.  I promise.”

            _I know he’s right, but…_

            Curt got up and moved around the table to take Arthur in his arms.  “Just relax and ignore them,” he whispered.  “They’re not worth worrying about.”

            They stayed like that until the intercom by the door buzzed.  Curt swore under his breath even as he went to see who it was.  “Delivery,” an unfamiliar man’s voice said through crackling static.  “Packet from ABT Transcription Services.  I’ll need you to sign for it.”

            “Yeah, come on up,” Curt replied, pressing the button to open the front door.

            “What’s goin’ on?” Arthur asked.

            Curt turned to grin at him.  “I made a copy of your interview with Brian, and sent it off to be transcribed so you wouldn’t have to do it.”

            Arthur stood up and walked over to give Curt a passionate kiss.  “You’re wonderful,” he said.  Then he glanced down at Curt’s body.  “But you should probably put some trousers on before you answer the door.”

            “You think someone in the delivery business has never seen a guy in his boxers before?”

            “Please.  For me?”

            Curt sighed.  “All right,” he grumbled, heading into the laundry room, where he stuffed himself into a dirty pair of jeans out of the bin of unwashed clothes.  _Well, better than nothing.  I suppose._

            Given everything, Arthur wasn’t ready even to _read_ the interview with Tommy Stone yet.  He set it with the rest of his research on the desk in the library, then headed back out to take a seat on the sofa and check the morning news programmes.  None of them had a word to say about his relationship with Curt, thankfully.

            Curt had gotten bored and wandered off somewhere while Arthur was watching the news, so once it was over, he didn’t have any ideas as to how to occupy his time other than get to work on his book.  And yet, he couldn’t quite bear the prospect of it just at the moment.

            Instead, he picked up the telephone and began to dial Malcolm’s number.  He surely wouldn’t have left for the club yet; it was only early afternoon in London.  Soon enough, Malcolm answered the phone.  “Malcolm?  It’s—”

            “Arthur!  Are you all right, chuck?”

            “Don’t tell me he even sent those photos to the papers in London,” Arthur moaned.  _Can he really be **that** jealous?_

            “It was only in a few papers,” Malcolm told him.  “A couple of the sleazier London papers, and…I’m sorry.  It was on the front page of the one Manchester paper I saw.”

            “Shite.”  If there were still any people he used to know who _didn’t_ think he was gay…  “I should try to look on the bright side,” Arthur said, trying to convince himself of it.  “At least it’ll tell my mother I’m all right.”

            “You could have told her yourself,” Malcolm pointed out.

            “How?  If I called, I’d never be sure it wouldn’t be answered by my father, or my brother.  There’s no way that tosser ever got a job or moved out of the house, after all.”

            Malcolm sighed.  _Yes, I know.  We’ve had this argument before._   “Arthur, who did you mean when you said ‘he’ even sent the photos to London papers?”

            “Brian Slade.  He paid a private detective to take those photos.”

            “Bloody hell.  Are you sure?”

            “He confronted me with them before I interviewed him,” Arthur sighed.  “Awfully jealous behaviour from someone who claimed he felt his entire relationship with Curt had been a mistake.”  He shook his head, trying to remind himself why he was calling.  “I just wanted to let you know that until this blows over, I’m stayin’ with Curt.  We weren’t sure my flat was still safe.  So when you send back the tapes of the interviews, you’ll have to send them here.”  He gave Malcolm Curt’s address, and phone number.

            “Of course I’ll send them there if that’s what you want, but maybe it’s time for you to leave America now,” Malcolm insisted.  “They all have guns, after all, and they hate anyone who’s different.”

            Arthur laughed.  “They don’t _all_ have guns,” he assured him.  “And New York actually has a sizeable gay population.  It’s probably the safest city on this continent for someone like me.  After San Francisco.  Really, I’m not terribly worried about becomin’ a victim of violent crime.  It’s the mockery I hate.”  _That was what drove me to leave England, after all._

            “I suppose nothing I say will change your mind.”

            “No.”

            “At least consider it.  I’m going to have the club upgraded soon, and having Curt Wild perform at the grand re-opening would really bring in the crowds,” Malcolm said.

            “I’m sure it would,” Arthur agreed, “but are you really makin’ enough money that you can afford to give the place the refittin’ you’re always goin’ on about?”  _It would cost hundreds of thousands of pounds, surely…_

            “No, not as such.  I’m getting new partners,” Malcolm told him, his voice bursting with joy.  “Getting together for the lawsuit reminded the Venus in Furs how much they had enjoyed working with each other, so they’re re-forming the band.  And they don’t want to keep the studio’s money, because they said the movie is a bloody insult no matter how you toss it, so they figured go in with me on the club, and spend all that money to give the place the work it needs.”

            “That’s great,” Arthur exclaimed.  “They should be a good draw for audiences, too.”

            “I was thinking of joining them on stage,” Malcolm went on.  “They’re all good singers in their own right, of course, but they’re used to having someone else be the main act, and I’m without a band of my own at the moment, so we thought we’d be a good match.”

            Arthur’s heart seized up for a moment or two.  “Malcolm…I…”

            “What?”

            “I really think you should at least talk to the others about puttin’ the Flaming Creatures back together.”

            “They’re not interested,” Malcolm insisted.

            “Have you actually _asked_ them if they’re interested?”

            “No, not as such, but if they were, they’d have said something!”

            Arthur sighed deeply.  “No, they wouldn’t ‘ave.  Just like you, they’re assumin’ everyone else doesn’t want to get back together.  Look, have you interviewed them for me yet?”

            “No.  I—actually, I was thinking of asking someone else to do it.”

            “Don’t.  If you ever had any feelings of any kind for me, you’ll talk to them all personally.  And you’ll tack on an extra question at the end.  Ask them if they have any interest in startin’ the band up again.”

            “Arthur, I really don’t think there’s any point to that.”

            “Just humour me, all right?”

            The line was silent for nearly a minute, interrupted only by the occasional hiss of static.  “Fine,” Malcolm eventually grumbled.  “But only because it’s you.”

            “Thank you.”

            “Hey, who are you talking to?” Curt’s voice asked from behind him.  “You sound awfully close.”

            _When did he come back in?_   “I’d better go, Malcolm,” Arthur said, trying to contain his grin.  “Curt’s gettin’ jealous.”

            “Let me talk to him for a minute,” Malcolm said.

            “Okay.”  Arthur turned to look at Curt, holding out the phone towards him.  “Malcolm wants to talk to you.”

            Curt raised a dubious eyebrow, but took the phone never the less.  “Yeah?”  He stood there a minute or two, just listening and nodding.  “Giving a club a facelift’s gonna take six months, minimum.  But yeah, I’ll keep it in mind, sure.  Let me know when it’s done.”  He paused again, listening, then he laughed, with a vicious smirk.  “You’d need an army for that,” he said, then laughed again, in a more friendly way.  “But don’t worry.  It’s not gonna happen anyway.”

            After Curt hung up the phone, Arthur couldn’t contain his curiosity.  “What would he need an army for?”

            Curt grinned, and sat down on the sofa beside Arthur, facing him, their hips pressed close together.  “He said if I ever broke your heart, he’d come over here and make me regret it.”

            Arthur knew he should probably say something in response to that, but all he could think to do was to kiss Curt passionately.  “I love you,” he murmured, in the brief pause between when their lips parted and the resumption of their embrace.


	16. Chapter 16

            As they were eating their delivery Chinese food for lunch, Curt couldn’t help noticing that Arthur was still acting a bit jittery.  _His first time as the focus of attention.  He’s used to being on the other end of this sort of thing…_

            Since just telling him ‘it’s going to be all right’ hadn’t proved very effective, Curt decided to try a different approach, and went into the library.  After a lot of searching, however, he realized the book he was looking for wasn’t there.  That left only one, very unpleasant place it could be.  He seriously considered not bothering.

            But Arthur wasn’t going to be much fun if he kept jumping at his own shadow.

            So there really wasn’t any choice, was there?

            With a grimace of fore-knowledge, Curt went to the hall closet.  For a minute or two, he just stood there, staring at the door.  It was a contest of wills:  if he thought at it hard enough, surely he could _make_ everything inside stay in position!  Surely!  _That kind of thing always works in the movies…_

            Once he was sure he had mentally overpowered the closet, he opened the door.

            It seemed to have worked; nothing fell out.

            So he started rooting around, looking for the books.

            After five seconds, everything shifted.  And then fell.  Most of it landed right on his fucking head.

            Curt wasn’t sure if it was the clatter or the swearing that brought Arthur running.  Once he saw what happened, he let out a disappointed sigh so loud it was almost a moan.  “You really did just shove it all back in the closet.”

            “Of course I did!  What the fuck else would I do with it?!”

            “This time, we’re cleanin’ it up properly so no one ends up with a concussion,” Arthur told him, even as he started picking random shit up off the floor.  “Were you lookin’ for something in there?”

            “Yeah, one of the books,” Curt said, starting to sort through the crap on the floor, looking for the right book.

            Arthur joined him in sifting through the books, despite that he had no idea what he was looking for.  One of the books made him chuckle slightly.  “When did you start readin’ philosophy?” he asked.

            “In prison.”

            Arthur made a choking noise, and averted his gaze.

            Curt sighed.  “It’s not a big deal,” he insisted.

            “No, I…I shouldn’t 'ave…”

            “Shouldn’t have _what_?  Not like you knew that was gonna be the answer.  And believe me, it’s in the past.  I don’t care,” Curt assured him, taking the book away from him with a firm pressure of his hands against Arthur’s.  “It was actually kind of self-defense.”

            “What was?” Arthur asked, looking at him with wide, confused eyes.

            “The philosophy,” Curt explained, laughing.  “’Cause when I went to the prison library to get a book, there wasn’t much in the way of privacy, right?  Everyone knew what I was reading.  A guy who gets _Pride and Prejudice_ out of the prison library gets beaten up and gang-raped.  But one who gets Nietzsche?  Everyone’s scared of him, ‘cause they think he must be really smart, or really mean, ‘cause the Nazis gave Nietzsche a bad rep.”  He chuckled.  “Only then it turns out Nietzsche’s thing was actually telling people to enjoy life and stop living with a stick up their ass.  I could get into that, you know?”

            Arthur laughed.  “Makes sense,” he agreed.

            Glancing around, Curt saw the book he’d been looking for, and set aside the Nietzsche to pick it up.  “Here, this is it,” he said, handing the book to Arthur.  “I thought you should read this.”

            “What is it?” Arthur asked, looking at the cover.  “A spy thriller?”

            “Well, sort of.  The hero gets pulled into all that kind of shit, but it’s also got a lot of stuff about him having to deal with the world finding out he’s gay.  I thought it might help you get through this.”

            “I—I’m fine, really.”

            “Bullshit.”  Curt shook his head.  “Just read it, whether you want to or not.”

            Arthur chuckled weakly.  “All right.  But only if we actually clean this mess up, instead of shovin’ it all back in the closet.”

            “But…”  Curt grimaced, then let out a sigh.  “All right, we’ll clean it up.”

            While they were going through the incredibly boring process of picking everything up and figuring out where it actually went—though most of it didn’t have a home and ended up right back in the fucking closet anyway—Curt did his best to keep Arthur from prying into the subject of _why_ he had that book.  It wasn’t the sort of thing Curt usually read, after all.  But he didn’t want to admit the truth that the author had sent it to him as a present because he was the loose inspiration for the book.  The guy had come up with the plot in those few months when the world thought Brian really was dead.  In the course of working out the plot—and adding all the spy shit that author always centered his novels around—the hero had gone from a rock star to a popular actor.  And, of course, the ex-lover really _had_ been murdered in the novel, and it was that death that both exposed the relationship and propelled the hero into the crazy spy shit his ex had been killed over.  But throughout the book, the hero had to deal with homophobia and people who mocked his loss, instead of helping him mourn.  Considering the author insisted he was strictly straight, it was surprisingly genuine.

            As soon as everything was off the floor, Curt went to go watch TV.  But when Arthur snuggled up next to him on the sofa to read, he felt a little guilty about doing something so distracting.  So he tried to play Atari instead, but Arthur seemed to find that _more_ distracting, despite that there wasn’t any dialog or anything.  Faced with the prospect of driving Arthur off to read in another room, Curt miserably turned off the TV altogether, and turned on his stereo instead.  _That_ didn’t seem to bother him, so he just sat there, listening to old records and watching the way Arthur’s expression changed as he came to different parts of the story.

            Every time Arthur caught Curt looking at him, he raised the book and turned his face away a little.  _Is he ashamed of being seen in his glasses?  Fuck, that’s cute…_

            About five o’clock, Curt reluctantly got off the sofa and headed into the bedroom to get dressed.  Arthur followed him in after a few minutes.  “What are you doin’?” he asked, looking at Curt with concern.

            “Getting ready to go out.”

            “Yeah, but why?  Won’t there be paparazzi outside?”

            Curt shrugged.  “Probably,” he admitted.  “But I promised Cal I’d come listen to that new group today.”

            Arthur bit his lip uncertainly.  “Can’t you call and cancel?”

            “I could, yeah, but…I was thinking about it, you know?  I have that TV appearance in a few days, right?  If I’ve already heard these guys and know if I wanna work with ‘em, then I’ve got something else to say, instead of just defending my lifestyle, and bitching about that fucking movie.”

            “That’s true,” Arthur agreed.  “Should…would it be worse if I went with you or stayed here?”

            “Hard to say for sure, but it’s probably better if you come along.  If you’re with me, then it’s obviously not something I’m ashamed of, and obviously not a one-night stand, either.”

            Arthur made a quiet noise that might have been agreement.  It sounded more like terror, really.  Curt turned to look at him, and saw wide, uncertain eyes above trembling lips.  _God, he’s so fucking fragile!_   Tenderly, Curt pulled him into his arms and kissed him several times, then kissed his way down to Arthur’s throat, kissing and sucking at the pale, soft skin.

            “What are you doin’?” Arthur chuckled.  “Stop it!  You’ll leave a mark!”

            Curt laughed as he finally let go.  “That’s the idea,” he said, running a finger along Arthur’s lips.  “I’m marking my territory.”

            Arthur shook his head with a little sound that was half-laughter, half-groan.  Then he started getting dressed, putting on the sweet, tight jeans Curt had bought for him, and one of the more conservative of the nice shirts.  Curt couldn’t fight the desire to just stand there and watch him for a few minutes.  His body wasn’t as slender as it was nine years ago, but it was still hot.

            Curt had to force himself to look away and get back to putting his own clothes on.   _If we start fucking now, we’ll never end up going out at all._   Once he was dressed, Curt called for a cab, then stepped out onto the balcony so he could peer down at the street below.

            There was a small crowd of people gathered in front of the building.  _I wonder if I could get away with it if I started peeing on them…_

            “Curt, what are you doin’?” Arthur asked from behind him.  “What if someone sees you out there?”

            “What, I can’t stand on my own fucking balcony?”  Curt shook his head as he went back inside.  “They’d have trouble making a story out of me standing on the balcony.”

            “And how long was it going to be before you started doin’ something other than just standin’ there?” Arthur countered.  “Something you shouldn’t do?”

            “Why not just admit that you’re jealous someone else might see me?” Curt asked.  _No way I was gonna win **that** argument._

            “What?”  Of course, Arthur was utterly flummoxed.  On him, it was cute.

            Rather than try to make up an explanation, Curt started kissing him.  It beat trying to make sense, after all.  They were getting pretty heated up by the time the intercom buzzed to let them know the cab had gotten there.  The news that they were going to go out through that crowd of vultures made Arthur’s eye start twitching.  Curt bit his lip a moment.  _This is me being totally fucking selfish, isn’t it?_

            “If it’s going to bother you that much, you can stay here,” he said.  _I don’t want to become one of **those** guys…_

            Arthur smiled, and shook his head, but his smile was already wavering.  “I’d only worry if you went by yourself,” he insisted.  “Any number of girls might jump you and try to seduce you away from me.”

            Curt laughed.  “Hey, that’s gonna happen no matter what.  Get used to it!”  He gave Arthur a quick kiss.  “C’mon, let’s get down there before the driver gets pissed and leaves without us.”

            They left the apartment together, and had their arms around each other the whole ride down in the elevator.  But as soon as they stepped out, into the view of the people outside, they had to let go.  Not that that stopped those fuckers from flashing about a million pictures of them.  Was it really _that_ exciting to see two men leave an apartment building together?  They weren’t even holding hands.

            The paparazzi were so thick that Curt was barely able to see the cab on the other side of them.  He elbowed his way through them, and opened the door, then looked back at Arthur.

            Or tried to, anyway.  He was nowhere to be seen.

            “Shit.  I’ll be right back,” he told the driver, then headed back towards the throng, leaving the door open so he couldn’t decide to drive away after all.

            The tabloid vultures were all shouting at Arthur incoherently, and flash bulbs were going off left and right.  He had been backed up almost all the way to the door of the building by the time Curt got back to him.

            “Don’t let these guys walk all over you like that,” Curt told him, scowling.  Then he turned to the crowd.  “Fuck off!” he shouted, flipping them off.  Unfortunately, they seemed to like that.

            There was nothing for it but brute force, then.  He grabbed Arthur’s hand and started pulling him towards the street, shoving paparazzi out of the way in the process.  Of course, now they were gonna have new shots of hand-holding, but what the fuck else could he have done?

            Once the cab was safely moving, Curt looked at Arthur with disappointment.  “Seriously, how can you be a reporter and so fucking timid at the same time?”

            “Don’t confuse those wankers with serious journalists!” Arthur snapped back.  “You’d never see people behavin’ like that at a press conference!”

            Curt couldn’t help laughing at Arthur’s naïveté.  Even the cab driver laughed.

 

***

 

            Arthur had been so humiliated in the cab on the way to the jazz club that if turning around and going back had been an option, he would have done so.  But it really wasn’t.  Not that he couldn’t get past the paparazzi on his own!  But if he went back alone—and so soon!—they’d have a field day with it.  That would be far worse than if Curt had gone out by himself.

            Fortunately, things were quiet in the club, and no one seemed to be paying any attention to them.  Not until Calvin Jones came over with four young men in tow.  All five took seats at their booth—though two of the young men had to bring over chairs from other tables to have a place to sit—so they could talk to Curt.

            “These young fellows call themselves the Sea Phantoms,” Calvin told them, gesturing at the young men.  They all appeared to be in their early twenties, and were dressed in matching navy slacks and pale blue dress shirts.  Two of them were black, one white, and the other Asian.  Calvin gestured to each of them in turn as he introduced them:  “Casey Boyle, Herman Ready, Donald Haywood, Leslie Wang.”

            Naturally, that last name made Curt start sniggering.  “Don’t bother making any jokes,” the young Asian man said.  “Believe me, I’ve heard them all before.”

            “I keep telling you to change your fucking name,” the white one, Donald Haywood, said.

            “When I want your advice, I’ll ask for it, _Donald_ ,” Leslie retorted.

            “It’s _Don_!”

            Calvin cleared his throat to get their attention.  “That’s not the face you want to present to the world, boys.”

            “I wanna know why we’re here talking to this guy,” Casey Boyle said.  “No offense, man, but you’re just one note short of washed-up.”

            Curt raised an eyebrow for a moment, then shook his head.  “Not for long.  There’s no such thing as bad press, right?  So I’m getting a lot of ink right now.  That’s gonna turn into a new contract with a label.  _If_ I think collaborating with you is a good idea, that’d be a lot of attention for your group, even if it’s only for the one album.”

            “If we do end up working with you, would it be on an equal billing status, with accompanying equal pay, or would we be mere subordinates?” Herman Ready asked.

            “Uh…pay is not really my call,” Curt said, clearing his throat.  “I can promise equal billing, though.”

            “Not much point talking about contract details before he’s even heard us play,” Leslie said.  “He might decide he doesn’t like our style.”

            “Or maybe _we_ don’t like _his_ style,” Don countered.

            “Says the guy who owns like half his albums,” Leslie snickered.

            “Shut your fucking hole!” Don shrieked.

            As Leslie started shouting back, the two black boys—in perfect unison—smacked Don and Leslie in the backs of their heads with open palms.  _They must quarrel like that all the time…_   “We’re due on stage any minute,” Casey said, looking at his watch.  “Try and keep it in your pants.”

            Don and Leslie grumbled as they got to their feet.  All four of the young men headed to the stage, and started preparing their instruments.  Casey played piano, Herman a Spanish guitar, Donald the drums, and Leslie had a saxophone.  Calvin was still sitting in the booth, but he seemed focused on watching the young men prepare.

            Curt leaned over to whisper into Arthur’s ear.  “Those two are a couple, right?” he asked, gesturing towards the side of the stage where Leslie and Don seemed to already be bickering again.

            “That’s what I was thinkin’,” Arthur agreed.  They fought, as the saying went, like an old married couple.

            Their discussion didn’t get much further than that before the Sea Phantoms started playing.  There was a definite rock influence to their music, particularly in the drums, but the saxophone felt very traditionally jazz, and the guitar had traces of traditional Latin music in its style.  It was an unusual fusion, but they made it work quite well.

            “They’re pretty good,” Curt commented.  “But it’s hard to be sure if it would work without hearing them play my kind of music.”

            “I think you’ll find they already know a number of pieces in your style, if not some of your own songs,” Calvin assured him.  “You can go up and ask them to play a few.”

            Curt got up, and walked over to the small stage where the band was performing.  After a few minutes, Calvin followed him over.  As soon as the number they were playing ended, Curt leaned in to talk to Casey.  Once they were done talking, the Sea Phantoms launched into another piece.  Arthur recognized it as one of the songs from Curt’s Berlin album.  The whole time they were playing, Curt stood by the stage, watching them and nodding his head, with a small smile.

            The crowd in the club clapped politely for the number, but they didn’t seem to have enjoyed it as much as the jazz number that had preceded it.  Heedless of the lack of audience reaction, the Sea Phantoms started up another of Curt’s songs.  Only this time Curt got up on stage with them, snagging the microphone that was supposed to be picking up Herman’s guitar, and started singing to accompany them.  He was a little off tempo, and went off key a couple of times, but his enthusiasm was infectious, and filled Arthur with excitement.

            The jazz club audience was no more fond of the song with Curt singing it than they had been of the previous song without him.  But the Sea Phantoms looked pleased, and Curt was positively glowing with exuberance as he returned to the table.

            “What did you think?” he asked, sitting down next to Arthur in the booth.

            “You were magnificent,” Arthur assured him.  He was so overwhelmed by the impromptu performance that he couldn’t stop himself from giving Curt a passionate kiss.  But after the kiss was over, he came to his senses.  “Oh!  I—I wasn’t thinkin’!”  He looked around, terrified that the paparazzi were having a field day.

            “They don’t let anyone with a camera in here,” Curt assured him.  “It’s completely safe.”  As if to prove his point, he leaned in and gave Arthur another kiss.  “But we should probably try and stay…subtle, though,” he admitted, clearing his throat uncomfortably.  “Just in case.”

            “Yeah.  At least until we get back home,” Arthur added, giving Curt’s thigh a squeeze under the table.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank goodness for name generators! (Though I think I came up with Les Wang on my own...)
> 
> Oh, and I never managed to find a place to get back to it in the story, but yes, Don and Les are a couple.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Regarding the last line in the first paragraph, the fic "Magic" by thegirlwiththemouseyhair planted the idea firmly in my head that Curt might wake up in the middle of the night and decide to play his guitar, and the idea is not likely to leave any time soon. But I thought I should credit where it came from. :)

            It had been a long time since Curt had actually shared his living space with another person for more than the span of a weekend.  It wasn’t that he regretted that Arthur was now staying with him, or that he was looking forward to Arthur being able to go back to his own apartment.  It was just that he’d forgotten a lot of details about how it worked.  Little things, mostly.  Like how annoying it was to have to wait while someone was using the sink and you needed to take a piss, but how testy he’d get if you tried doing it while he was still brushing his teeth.  _Maybe that’s an English thing.  It drove Brian nuts, too._   Or how everyone had slightly different ideas about when was an appropriate time to get up and play the guitar, and when wasn’t.

            There were definitely a lot of benefits, though.  It was great to always have someone around to have sex with.  And it was nice not having to watch TV alone.  Arthur had even been open to learning how to play Atari, and it was fun to have an opponent other than the computer, even if he wasn’t very good at it yet.  Maybe, more than anything else, it made Curt realize he’d actually been kind of lonely before.

            He had finally started getting used it, though.  A little bit, anyway.  Enough that he knew the difference between a ‘we should get up’ that really meant ‘hurry up and fuck me’ and one that actually meant ‘we should get up.’  This morning’s had been the first type, and Curt was beyond enthusiastic about complying.  He had just slipped his finger in, making Arthur let out a low moan of pleasure, when the fucking phone started ringing.

            “You…you should answer it…” Arthur gasped.

            “You gotta be fucking kidding me!”  Not that it really sounded like he was kidding, but…  “If it’s a real call, they’ll leave a message, and I can call ‘em back later,” Curt said, fondling Arthur’s erection a little with his other hand.  Another moan followed, leading into such heavy breathing that Curt was worried Arthur would be finished before he even got started.

            Then the unthinkable happened.

            Arthur answered the stupid fucking phone.

            While still breathing so heavily that it probably sounded like an obscene answer.

            He coughed slightly, and did his best to hold the receiver out towards Curt.  “It’s Alicia,” he said, still panting.

            “Fuck.”  Curt tried to grab the phone without pulling his finger out, but he couldn’t without either breaking his finger or forcibly moving Arthur’s ass in a direction it probably couldn’t really go.  “What?!”

            “What the fuck is the matter with you?!” Alicia shrieked at him.  _Shit.  When the hell does Alicia ever swear?_   “You’re due at the TV studio in an hour, and you’re fucking your goddamn boyfriend?!”

            Curt’s first attempt to answer produced nothing but a vague gurgle.  “That…was today?” he eventually managed to say.

            “Yes, that’s today!”  The sound of Alicia’s fingernails drumming against something came through the earpiece painfully loudly.  Maybe she was drumming them _on_ the phone.  “It’s going to take me twenty minutes to get to your apartment,” she said, after sighing deeply.  “Either finish up or take a cold shower.  I don’t care which.  Just be ready to go when I get there.”

            “Uh…yeah…”

            Curt moved around Arthur to hang up the phone directly.

            “Your interview is this morning?” Arthur guessed.  He was still panting.  _He must be really close to coming…_

            “Yeah,” Curt sighed.  _If I actually fuck him, I’m gonna be worn out for the interview  Shit._

            Arthur had turned around and was sitting on the edge of the bed now, looking at him with those big, desirous eyes, even as his lips formed a tight line that seemed to say ‘forget about me and go do your job.’  His breathing still hadn’t gone back down to normal, and his dick looked like it was about to explode.

            Curt leaned in and kissed him deeply, then started jerking him off.  “Best I can do,” he said, with a sheepish grin.  _At least **one** of us gets to enjoy it…_

            Arthur’s back arched, and his arms began clutching at Curt as he surrendered to the pleasure.  It didn’t take long before it was over.  Disappointingly short, but the visuals—not to mention the panting and the moans, unobscured by Curt’s usual grunting—made it well worth it.

            “I should do that more often,” Curt commented, giving him a brief kiss before heading into the bathroom to take a very dismal, very cold shower.

            Once he was done in the shower, Curt quickly got dressed, putting on a pair of brown leather pants, along with the matching leather jacket.  It was a thin jacket, so he usually used it as a shirt.  Probably a bit much for whatever TV show this was—he’d already forgotten what it was called—but he didn’t care.  They were getting the real, undiluted Curt Wild, whether that was what they wanted or not.

            Arthur had laid down across the bed as soon as he’d finished climaxing, but now he was struggling to sit up again.  “D’you want me to come with you?” he asked.

            Curt laughed, and leaned down to kiss him.  “I think that’d just complicate things,” he said.  “You go on and sleep that off.  And get back your energy, ‘cause when I get back I’m gonna fuck you so hard you’ll have trouble sitting down for a week.”

            Arthur chuckled.  “Lookin’ forward to it,” he murmured, even as his eyes started drooping shut.

            Curt barely got downstairs before Alicia arrived in her station wagon.  _Is that a **requirement** when you become a mother?  You gotta start driving a fucking station wagon?_

            Of course, Alicia scowled at him as he got in the passenger seat, and started clutching her temples as soon as he shut the door behind him.  “Would it have killed you to wear a shirt like a normal person?”

            “Yeah, it would have.”

            Alicia let out a disgusted sigh, but didn’t say anything.  She just set off into traffic.  “A few things have changed since they agreed to the interview,” she told him.  “I only just found out this morning.”

            “What kind of things?  Don’t tell me now they only wanna ask me about Arthur.”

            “They didn’t say anything about a change in topics, but I think it’s safe to say the subject will come up,” Alicia said, shaking her head.  “There are two changes.  One, despite my arguments to the contrary, it’s going to be a live broadcast, so you absolutely _must_ keep your tongue on a leash!  _No_ swearing!  At all!”

            “Why?”

            “Do you really have to ask that?!”  It was such a high-pitched shriek that Curt was surprised it didn’t break the glass in the windows.

            “I meant ‘why are they insisting on doing a live broadcast’,” Curt told her, feeling more than a little peeved.  How stupid did she think he was?

            “That’s because of the other change.  Now the interview isn’t being conducted by the show’s host.  It’s being conducted by Sandra Matthews.”

            “Not sure I see why that would make them demand on it being live.”  _I’m not even sure who she **is** , but Alicia’s probably gonna scream at me again if I admit that._

            “Because Sandra Matthews is a serious telejournalist, and she’s important enough that she gets to impose her idiosyncrasies on all those around her,” Alicia replied.

            “Uh…okay.”  _It’s too early in the morning for big words.  Especially after you interrupted my sex._

            “Curt, it is _very_ important that you keep all this in mind,” Alicia said, turning her head to glare at him.  “If you’re rude to her, that’s going to be it.  You can’t get away with something like that.  You _have_ to be polite, reasonable, _honest_ and grateful.  It’s a big deal, getting interviewed by her.  She’s interviewed three Presidents!  In the Oval Office!”

            “Okay, okay, I’ll play nice,” Curt sighed.

            Despite his promise, Alicia kept lecturing him for the rest of the drive to the studio.  He wanted wring her neck long before they got there.

            As soon as they got to the studio, Curt was handed over to the production team, and shunted off into a dressing room for make-up and hairdressing, and all that shit.  He hadn’t done many TV appearances, but the basic procedure wasn’t that different from a concert, really.  Except the people handling him were used to actors, and didn’t quite know how to deal with someone like Curt.  They insisted on putting powder not just on his face, but all down his chest, so it wouldn’t “shine,” and when he suggested some dark eyeliner—he hadn’t even _had_ any in the apartment anymore—they acted as though he’d suggested rubbing baby’s blood in his hair.  They had a lot of complaints about his hair, too, for that matter.  One of them kept trying to convince him to wear a headband or barrettes so his hair wouldn’t be falling in his face.  Curt eventually had to tell her to piss off.  Though Alicia would probably read him the riot act for that later.

            Still, eventually he was released from their clutches, and led to the set where he’d be interviewed.  He’d been expecting a fake living room—those seemed to be the location of choice for morning talk shows, after all—but instead it was more of an office.  There was a desk, with two chairs, one to either side.  Curt was led in to sit at one side of the desk, and a production assistant asked if he wanted anything.

            “Uh…something with caffeine in it,” Curt said.  “A soda,” he added.  Trying to drink coffee during an interview would probably lead to him burning his tongue and swearing without thinking about it.

            He’d only just gotten his soda when the lights came up full—painfully bright, considering how long he hadn’t been out of bed—and people started bustling around.  There was a lot of shouting of things like “Camera 3, on-line!” and “Someone check the sound quality!” and “We’re on in 5!”

            Soon a middle-aged woman in a tailored suit came in, and smiled at him.  It was a polite smile, and nothing else; her eyes were devoid of any of the emotions that would usually accompany a smile.  “I’m Sandra Matthews,” she told him, offering him her hand.

            Trying not to grimace, Curt shook her hand.  Alicia would probably have told him to stand up first, but who gave a fuck what Alicia thought.  “Curt Wild,” he said.  Though why he bothered was beyond him:  there was no fucking way she didn’t know that.

            “You’ve been told we’re going on live, yes?” Sandra asked, as she sat down across from him.

            “Yeah.”

            “And you understand all that entails?”

            “Yeah, I know better than to fucking swear during a live broadcast,” Curt said, trying not to snarl.

            Sandra arched an eyebrow, with a bemused smile.  At least it looked more genuine than the previous smile.  “It also means you should avoid any _sensitive_ topics.”

            “What’s that supposed to mean?”  _Fucking hell, is she part of it?  Alicia did say she was used to going to the White House for interviews…but that’d mean the President himself was behind those guys…_

            She shook her head.  “No need to get defensive,” she said, her voice unpleasantly soothing.  “I just wanted to make sure you understand that you can’t take back something once you’ve said it on live television.  So make sure you don’t say anything you’ll regret.”

            Curt nodded.  _This is getting way too out of hand._

            “I’d advise that you avoid insulting the movie studio when it comes time to discuss your lawsuit,” Sandra went on.  “Studios don’t like it when you insult them.  You might find yourself being sued.”

            “I was more planning on insulting Jerry,” Curt said with a laugh.

            Sandra let out a controlled, careful little chuckle through closed lips.  “Probably better to avoid insulting anyone, but if you absolutely must, individuals are always better targets than corporate entities of any sort.”

            Before Curt could decide if he had any response, someone came over to tell them that they had less than a minute before they went on the air.  Sandra quickly assumed a position facing the central camera, and began to shuffle through a packet of papers.  No, not shuffling them, just rifling through them.  She kept doing that until someone shouted “We’re live in 3 – 2 – 1 – !”

            As soon as the red signs reading “ON AIR” lit up, Sandra lowered the papers, smiled at the cameras, and then did a brief introduction before turning to Curt, thanking him for taking the time to talk to her.  He wasn’t sure what the hell to say to that, and ended up saying “Uh, sure.”  _Unless Arthur’s still sleeping, he’s probably laughing his ass off at that…_

            “I’m sure you don’t want to talk about this, but the audience will want to know,” Sandra started.  _Fuck, here it comes.  You’d think she’d try to start slow instead of launching right into it._   “When a number of papers printed stories alleging that you were involved with Zac Sessions, your agent began trying to book you interviews to deny it the same day.  And yet you’ve made no effort to deny the stories currently circulating alleging your involvement with a New York reporter.  Why is that?”

            Curt stared at her for a moment before starting to laugh.  “That should be obvious!  It’s ‘cause that story about Zac Sessions was bull!  The tabloids always like to assume I’m sleeping with a guy just ‘cause they see me talking to him once.”  He shrugged.  “Normally I ignore ‘em, but in this case…”

            “Yes?” Sandra prompted, fixing him with a piercing stare.  _Like a fucking truth beam or something…_

            “Well, I—me and Arthur weren’t together yet, but I’d been wanting to hook up with him, you know?  So I couldn’t leave that alone and risk him thinking I was f—sleeping with some rinky-dink actor.”

            “Then is your relationship with this Arthur a serious one?”

            “What the hell kind of unfair question is that?” Curt demanded.  “You know he’s gonna be watching this, right?  So I can’t say it’s not, can I?  But if I say it _is_ , then half the audience is gonna turn off their TVs then and there!”

            Sandra chuckled.  “I think you’re underestimating the American public’s tolerance, but if it upsets you that much, I withdraw the question.  I have to admit that I assumed it was a shallow, short-term affair, based on your history.”

            “Huh?”

            “Well, unless your biography is missing a few pertinent chapters, you haven’t had a serious relationship in ten years.”

            Curt cleared his throat.  “It takes a while to grow a new heart.”  He shook his head.  “And I wanted to be more careful about who gets access to this one.”

            Sandra just looked at him, clearly expecting more.

            “Besides, I don’t—I’m not the type to flaunt my love life around,” Curt went on.  “All the publicity about me and Brian, that wasn’t my idea, and I didn’t like the results.  But that was what Brian said he wanted—wasn’t _his_ idea, either—and at the time I just wanted whatever he wanted, so I went along with it.  If it was up to me, the general public would never know when I’m seeing someone and when I’m not, ‘cause it’s none of their damned business.”

            “And yet you went on such a public and romantic date with this reporter…”

            “We went to a dimly lit, very _exclusive_ restaurant,” Curt corrected her.  “It’s not the kind of place paparazzi can get into.  No one would know about it at all if Brian hadn’t hired that fu—private eye to tail me.”

            Sandra’s eyes widened.  “I think I must have misheard you…”

            “No, you didn’t,” Curt assured her, with a cold laugh.  “Those pictures were taken by a PI hired by Brian Slade…though that’s not the name that was on the check the guy was paid with, of course.”

            “What name—”

            “I’m not sure what made Brian wait a week before sending them off to the tabloids, though.  Either he was jealous because we’d actually gone on another date—though that’d mean either he’s still got someone tailing me or he knows someone who was at that club—or it was ‘cause Arthur had just printed a story that inconvenienced his new best buddy President Reynolds.”  Curt shrugged.  “Doesn’t really matter to me _why_ he decided to stick a new knife in my back.”

            Sandra’s mouth opened and closed soundlessly a few times, as if she wasn’t quite sure what to say.  Or maybe she was doing a fish impression.  “Did you just say that Brian Slade is friends with President Reynolds?”

            “Yeah, or so they say.  I don’t care.  He’s a sell-out now, so if he wants to hang with someone who represents everything we used to fight against, fine, let him!  He became dead to me the minute he started this new career.”

            “What new career?”

            Curt laughed.  “It’s funny, now that I come to mention the idea of him being dead to me; I didn’t find out he wasn’t really dead for three or four days,” he said.  _No fucking way I’m gonna come out and actually say it.  You wanna know his new name?  Work for it, bitch!_   “You know, ten years ago, when he faked his own death?  Of course, no one bothered to tell me about it in advance.  I’m kinda pissed at his band for that, actually.  Those guys had to know I’d be devastated.  One of ‘em shoulda called to warn me!”  He paused a moment, thinking.  “Or…then again…I guess they didn’t know where the hell I was.  I’d just gotten on the first plane out of England.  It woulda taken a real genius to track me down.”  He laughed.  “I still wonder how Jack Fairy found me.  He’s never agreed to tell me, of course.  He does like being mysterious.”  Curt shook his head.  “Jack really saved my life when the news hit Berlin that Brian had been shot.  If I’d been alone…I’d probably have had a fatal overdose.  You know, one of those ‘accidents’ that are subconsciously intentional?  But Jack’s always been pretty smart about drugs.  He’d always push me to try new ones, things that weren’t as dangerous, ones it was hard to OD on.  But when the news reached us, he didn’t let me turn to drugs at all; he just let me drink myself into a stupor.  The hangover lasted for almost a week,” he laughed.  “Once it was calmed down enough that I could actually hold a conversation, I called Mandy to ask if I should come back to England for the funeral, or if that’d be trashy.  She spent at least an hour venting all her rage at me.  Not that she was angry at me, just at Brian.”

            “Why was she angry at him?” Sandra asked.

            Curt let out a brief, cold chuckle.  “He hadn’t bothered to tell _her_ about it in advance, either.  Hell, I don’t think he was planning on telling her _at all_.  But Trevor felt sorry for her and let her know Brian was really alive.  A day later.  Can you imagine it?  Her own husband doesn’t think to let her know he’s alive, and it’s only one of his back-up band who thinks of her?”  Curt shook his head.  “Then again, I think Trevor’s slept with both of ‘em, so maybe that had something to do with it.”

            From the frown and wrinkled brow, Sandra didn’t approve of that idea in the least.  “Why didn’t you or Mrs. Slade reveal Brian’s secret?” she asked.

            Curt’s heart started pounding.  “What secret?”  _I don’t get it!  Whose side is she on?  Ours or Reynolds’?!_

            “That he wasn’t dead,” Sandra clarified.  “Or was it you or Mrs. Slade who informed the London paper?”

            Curt shook his head.  “Wasn’t me,” he said.  “I was still in Berlin.  I wouldn’t think it’d be Mandy, either.  Personally, I think it was Brian’s manager, Jerry.  Sure, he was probably thrilled at first.  When the golden goose dies, everyone’s in a rush to buy the remaining eggs, yeah?  But then that’s it.  No more eggs.  So when the initial rush to buy Brian’s records in tribute to the fallen star had passed, Jerry was looking at no more income from the act that had been his meal ticket for years.  So he leaked it to the press that it had all been an act, thinking that the public would just be glad to have him back, and Brian could go right back to putting out albums, just like before.  Idiot.  If he’d really wanted Brian’s career to carry on, he should’ve made it a conspiracy, and said that Brian was a prisoner somewhere for those six months.  Hell, he could’ve blamed space aliens and gotten a better public response.”

            “At least that would have fit Slade’s persona,” Sandra said, with a light laugh.  Then her smile faded, and she shifted the papers in her hands before laying them down on the desk between them.  “Since you’ve brought him up, perhaps now is a good time to talk about the movie script by Jerry Devine, and your lawsuit attempting to prevent production?”

            “Fine by me.”  _That’s the whole fucking reason I came here!_

            “As I’m sure you know, Brian Slade and the former members of his back-up band have agreed to be paid for the use of their names and music in the film, but you and Mrs. Slade are still pressing the lawsuits against the studio to block the movie.  Why is that?”

            “I don’t really get the way Mandy thinks, so I can’t say why she’s still suing,” Curt started, shaking his head.  “As to me, well, it’s ‘cause that script’s a fu—freakin’ insult.  No, not just an insult—it’s an attack!”

            “You seem to feel quite strongly on the subject,” Sandra commented.  Pointlessly.

            “Damned right I do!” Curt shouted.  “Look, I’ve actually read that script, okay?  It makes me out to be not just a mindless beast, but also a downright _villain_.  I don’t know.  Maybe that’s really the way Jerry sees me:  the monster who took away his most lucrative act.”

            “Is there any chance that your opinion is being colored by the fact that in the initial draft you had been given the name ‘Savage’?”

            Curt laughed.  “I couldn’t care less about that.  Believe me, I’ve been called worse.  No, it’s imbedded right in the story.  The whole thing is distorted.  It starts out with Brian’s arrival in America, right?  So in the movie, it doesn’t explain why he ends up meeting me, just shows us talking in a restaurant, and me suddenly and inexplicably coming on to him.”

            “And that didn’t happen?”

            “Well, I know the words in the script are the words I spoke, but I can’t honestly remember if I meant it as a pass at him or not.”  _In 1972, asking someone to be your ‘main man’ was not usually a sexual thing._   Curt shrugged.  “It was twelve years ago, and I was taking way too many drugs to remember clearly.  The thing is, it leaves out the most important part of the story of how we met.  Mandy told me about this:  when Brian’s American tour was scheduled, Jerry offered to let him meet anyone he wanted in America, right?  Like how the Beatles went to see Elvis, you know?  Mandy and Brian’s hangers-on, they all wanted movie stars, but Brian wanted to meet me.”

            “Why is that?”

            Curt shrugged.  “Mandy said he’d become a fan since seeing me at a live show when I was in England back in 1970.”  _I think that mighta been the show where I flashed the audience…but I’m not sure, and I’m not about to say **that** on live fucking TV.  Or at all._   “The way she tells it, she knew as soon as he asked to meet me that he was planning on having an affair with me.”

            “Did you have a reputation of being gay?”

            “I have no idea what people in England knew about my sex life in 1972.  But around here it was pretty well known that I’d sleep with just about anybody.  Especially when I was really high.”  He shook his head.  “I don’t think Brian would have cared even if I’d been totally straight.  His whole androgynous act made half a generation of British kids claim they were bisexual, so he was convinced he could seduce anyone, man or woman.”  Curt sighed deeply.  “The thing is, whether or not I was trying to hit on him in that restaurant, Brian absolutely took it that way, and the first time he got me alone in his hotel room, he was all over me.  I didn’t need any convincing, of course, ‘cause he was hot, but…even if I _was_ making a pass at him, it wasn’t like I was seducing an innocent.  Seducing someone who came looking for you ‘cause they wanted to get laid is…well, it’s just _normal_.”

            Sandra chuckled.  “I’m not sure ‘normal’ is quite the word.”

            “But Jerry’s script makes it out like I seduced Brian—like he’d never actually been with a man before, and it was all an act up until that point.  And that’s just plain bull, and Jerry knows it.”  Curt paused, taking a gulp of his soda.  He wasn’t used to doing this much talking.  “The whole script’s like that,” he added, as he put the glass back down.  “Jerry made it out like Brian had never done drugs before getting involved with me, too.  Again, total bull.  Hell, Brian was the one scoring all the drugs.”  Curt laughed.  “Brian’s got a real fear of needles, if you’d believe it.  He won’t do anything that requires one.  So he got me switched off heroin and methadone onto cocaine.  Not really an improvement.”

            “No, definitely not,” Sandra agreed.  “But I’m not entirely clear why his fear of needles would have changed _your_ drug use?”

            Curt laughed grimly.  “You’ve never been an addict.”

            “Certainly not!”

            “Well, let me tell you, it’s a lot more fun if you’ve got someone with you taking the same stuff.  Doesn’t matter what the stuff is, or who the person with you is.  You just get a better high if someone’s sharing it.  Or maybe it’s just that you feel less like a loser.  Shooting up alone you feel like you’re the lowest scum ever, like no one would ever be willing to be around you.  I think that leads to a lot of ODs, actually.  You’re so depressed by it that you take too much, trying to fight the depression.”

            “You seem to be very calm about all this.  Didn’t drugs destroy your career?”

            “My career’s not dead yet!”

            “May I ask how you managed to cure your drug habit?  Maybe our viewers could benefit from your advice.”

            “Uh, not unless they want to go to jail,” Curt replied, glancing over at the cameras uncomfortably.  _Shit, something about this woman makes it hard not to answer her.  I’ve already said more than I meant to…_

            “Was your method illegal?” Sandra asked, with wide eyes.

            Curt laughed.  “No, going to jail _was_ my method.  Not like that was why I got arrested.  That was just, you know, they caught me with enough heroin to kill myself four or five times over.  But they don’t let you have heroin in the joint, so I had to go cold turkey.”  He smiled sadly.  “It was brutal.  They ended up putting me in the hole.”

            “Why?  What did you do?”

            “No, it wasn’t punishment.  They put me there so they couldn’t hear me screaming.  And they put me in a straight jacket to keep me from hurting myself.”  Curt shook his head.  “When I got arrested…that was probably as messed up as I’d ever been.  I was so badly trashed that I had driven everyone away.  Friends, girlfriends, my band, _everyone_.  That’s why I got caught—I had no one to cover for me, to warn me when the cops were coming.  But it worked out for the best.  I mean, I still get cravings, but remembering what that was like, lying there in the dark, unable to move my arms, hallucinating all kinds of horrible shit…that’s enough to kill about half the cravings right there.”

            “What about the other half?”

            Curt shrugged.  “There’s two kinds, physical and mental.  I always just distract myself until the craving passes, right?  So for a physical craving, when my body’s telling me it needs to get high or it’s gonna die, well, if I’ve got a partner to do it with, sex usually does the trick.  If I don’t…then I grab a bottle of gin or whiskey or something, and drink until the craving passes.”

            “That sounds dangerous.”

            “Yeah, that’s why I usually go to Mandy’s place to do it.  She won’t let me do anything _really_ stupid.  Though she gets pissed at me if I need to drink myself into a stupor at her place while she’s got a boyfriend.  It’s hard for her to try to explain to a guy why her husband’s ex-boyfriend is getting drunk on her couch.”  He laughed.  “It’s fun to listen to her try, though.”

            “I see.”  She sounded like she didn’t want to see.  “What about the mental cravings?”

            “Those used to be harder to deal with,” Curt admitted.  “Those are usually when I start getting depressed, and remember how much simpler everything was when I could just get high and forget the world.  But just watching a movie or reading a book isn’t good enough to distract from something like that.  The only thing better than getting high—apart from sex—is seeing the crowd getting all wrapped up in one of my concerts, but it’s not like I can suddenly hold a concert every time I find myself wishing I was high.”  He chuckled.  “Kinda wish I could.”  He shook his head.  “It was an accident, but I found out that playing video games is enough to distract me.  So whenever I get hit with one of those mental cravings, I turn on my Atari.”

            Sandra started to laugh, then bit it back.  “That’s certainly an unusual method.”

            “I think it’d probably work for a lot of people, though.  I remember telling that to my manager a few years ago—you know, before the new games dried up—that we should talk to Atari about doing a PSA about how kids should play more video games ‘cause they’ll keep the kids off drugs.  My manager felt that I was crazy even to suggest it.”

            “I don’t think Atari would have much cared for the idea,” Sandra agreed.

            “Yeah, maybe not.”  Curt shrugged.  He took another drink from his soda, trying to remember what he’d been saying before he got dragged off on that drug tangent.  “Oh, right, that’s it,” he said as soon as he’d swallowed the liquid in his mouth.

            “What?”

            “The thing about the drugs in Jerry’s script, that’s what I wanted to say before you distracted me.  See, Brian had more reasons to change what I was hooked on than just his fear of needles.  He wanted to be in control.  He’s always been a control freak, and I think he’s only gotten worse since hitting a second stardom.  Thing is, as soon as he was controlling what I was taking, then he had control over _me_ , if he needed.  He didn’t usually need it, ‘cause I was just as hooked on having sex with him as I was on the cocaine and all, but…hell, between him and Jerry’s publicity machine, I was just a flippin’ pinball, you know?  I didn’t have any control over what I was doing or where I was going.”  Curt shook his head.  “That’s not how it plays out in that script, though.  That makes me out to be the one pushing everyone in all the unpleasant directions.”  He sighed.  “It’s the drug thing that pisses me off more than anything.  Because I remember that conversation in the restaurant well enough to know that I told them I was on methadone to try and shake off heroin.  I _knew_ my life was falling apart, and I was trying to fix it, and I told them so, because…well, because Brian said he wanted to help me.  And I was just naïve enough to think he meant it.”

            “He didn’t mean it?”

            Curt looked away from her piercing stare.  “I don’t really know,” he admitted.  “Sometimes, I still think he was on the level the whole time.  But sometimes…”  He looked back up, right into her eyes.  _If I’m gonna say this, I don’t want anyone to accuse me of saying it just to be pissy.  I won’t tell this truth only to have everyone think I’m making it up._   “Sometimes I feel like there were a lot of ways that Brian was just taking advantage of me.”  Seeing the corners of Sandra’s mouth twitch as she fought laughter, Curt’s eyes widened.  “I didn’t mean like that!” he insisted.  “I didn’t mean he was the one fu—I wasn’t talking about sexual positions!”  _The last thing I want is to get a reputation as a submissive fag!_   “I mean, after he fulfilled his initial desire to have sex with me, he only kept it going because Jerry’s scheme to flaunt our affair was doing wonders for his record sales.”

            “Do you really believe that?”

            Curt sighed.  “I said ‘sometimes,’ didn’t I?  I gave up on trying to figure Brian out a long time ago.  Every time I think I understand what’s going on in his head, he’ll do something that completely destroys everything I thought I knew about him.  But there were definitely times when he should have been mad, and he wasn’t.  Times when he should have picked me over everyone else, and he didn’t.”

            “Was that why you broke up?”

            “Er…that was…stupid,” Curt admitted, uncomfortably.  “We got in a fight about…I don’t even remember what it was about.  I was pretty drunk at the time.  A little high, too, but mostly drunk.  Thing is, after the fight, I went storming off, swearing I was leaving forever.  The next day, when it came time to get all my stuff and really leave…that’s when any normal person—any person who actually cared about their partner—would apologize.  I thought at the time that I’d been wronged, so I felt like he had to apologize first, but I didn’t really want to leave, so if he’d apologized, I’d have apologized too, and then everything should’ve gone right back to normal.  But he didn’t.  He was too proud to apologize.  Too proud, or he didn’t really care.  I’ve never known quite what to make of it.  But it spent years haunting me.”

            Sandra cocked her head inquisitively.  “It doesn’t haunt you any longer?”

            “Er…sometimes.”  Curt coughed slightly.  “Even after Brian turned over a new leaf to become _that_ , it still sometimes made me wonder if it was my fault, if he’d have kept going with his original career if we hadn’t broken up.  But you know, I’d probably have died a long time ago if that had happened, whether from an overdose or just plain succumbing to all the abuses I was putting my body through.”  He shrugged.  “It doesn’t matter.  That specter’s totally gone since I got together with Arthur.  Maybe it’s only temporary, or maybe it’ll stay exorcised.”

            “That makes it sound like your new relationship is very serious indeed.”

            “Well, keep in mind, Arthur’s much better looking than Brian ever was,” Curt laughed.  “And he’s about ten years younger than me, so he’s gonna keep his looks a long time.  And Brian’s already lost _his_ looks!”

            There was an uncomfortable pause, then Sandra smiled weakly.  “I think we’ve strayed off topic…”

            As she started asking another probing question, Curt hastily downed the rest of his soda.  _How the fuck can she still have shit she wants to ask me?  I feel like I’ve been talking for a year already…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In proofing this, I realize suddenly that a lot of what Curt's saying about his former drug habit is probably 9000% shit.
> 
> I'm pretty sure I meant to look up what it's like to be in his situation and to re-write this accordingly.
> 
> Ugh, I hate myself right now.


	18. Chapter 18

            Arthur had to drag himself out of bed to catch the beginning of Curt’s interview on television.  He had just barely put a blank video cassette in the recorder and hit ‘record’ when the show transferred from the usual host to Sandra Matthews.  _Imagine gettin’ interviewed by Sandra Matthews!  I hope Curt understands what an honour that is…_

            Every time Sandra asked Curt about him, Arthur’s whole body went rigid with terrified anticipation.  Every time, he feared that would be the time Curt would snap that it was meaningless, that it was just sex, or that he just wanted to punish Brian by making him jealous.

            But that never happened.  In fact, each time Curt came closer and closer to saying that he was really quite serious about Arthur.

            Arthur’s favourite part of the interview was probably the part where Sandra unexpectedly turned the conversation back to the subject of Zac Sessions after five or ten minutes of discussing the Sea Phantoms and how their accompaniment was going to herald a new direction for Curt’s music.  She asked Curt what he thought of Sessions’ recent statement to the press, and when Curt admitted that he didn’t know anything about it, Sandra explained:  “According to his statement, he was so eager to play the role because he thought it would be a good way to come forward and tell the world that he was a homosexual.  It would seem that your relationship with Brian Slade was very influential in helping young men like Zac come to terms with their own desires towards other young men.  He wanted both to emulate that for the next generation of young men, and to feel a little closer to someone he’s spent the last ten years idolizing.”

            Curt cleared his throat, with a slight rasping noise.  _He needs another drink…_   “Now I feel kinda bad for what I was saying about him earlier,” he grumbled, then shook his head.  “If he really has any respect for me, then he’ll back out of making that movie.  Same goes for anyone else involved in the movie.”  _The down side of that argument is that if they still make the movie, then it’ll look like no one has any respect for you, Curt._

            “Would you have reacted any differently to the rumours suggesting you were involved with him if you had known that he actually was interested in you?” Sandra asked.

            “There’s a big difference between being gay and being interested in me, specifically,” Curt pointed out, scowling at her.  “But no, it wouldn’t have made any real difference.  He’s not my type.  Besides, even if he was, there’s no way I’d have been willing to settle for him while Arthur’s around.”

            Arthur’s heart began beating so madly that it nearly drowned out the next several minutes of the television broadcast.

            Once the interview was over, the wait for Curt to get back to the flat was agonizing.  Arthur was far too excited to read, and nothing else on television could capture his attention for more than a moment or two.  In the end, he just laid back on the couch and thought about Curt.  About everything he had said about Arthur in the interview, and about everything Arthur wanted to do with him as soon as he got back.

            That might actually have made the wait seem even longer.

            As soon as he heard the key in the lock, Arthur got to his feet and ran over.  The moment Curt shut the door again, Arthur started kissing him.  He had, originally, planned on saying something first, but…when the moment arrived, he was too far gone to be able to speak.

            They ended up leaving a trail of discarded garments leading from the front door to the bedroom.

 

***

 

            Starting the same night as Curt’s interview, the media began speculating on Brian Slade’s new identity.  Arthur was particularly keen on watching to see if the _Herald_ would break the story first, since he had—at least in a way—given Lou a hint.  Then again, perhaps Lou had been informed of the truth when he was bribed into cancelling the story in the first place?

            For the first 36 hours or so, most of the pundits seemed to be fixated on thinking that Brian had become Sting, from the Police.  Despite that Sting was in no way a sell-out, and had no connections to President Reynolds whatsoever.  Considering his was one of the few bands still putting out good music, Sting seemed an even more odd choice.  But perhaps it was because they were focusing on British singers that they were missing the obvious explanation…

            Of course, Curt’s phone was ringing nearly perpetually, and the answer machine’s little tape was quickly filling up with all the messages from people that Curt didn’t want to talk to.  Mandy also called, but the only message she left was “I hope you know what you’re doing.”  Curt didn’t call her back, saying that she was probably just going to lecture him.

            The post brought a pleasant surprise in the form of a large airmail packet containing a number of audio tapes and a letter from Malcolm.  The tapes contained the interviews with Jack Fairy and the Venus in Furs, and the interview with Malcolm, conducted by Trevor.

            As soon as the telephone line fell silent, Arthur called Malcolm to let him know the tapes had arrived.  “I’m very grateful,” Arthur assured him.

            “Never mind that,” Malcolm said, surprisingly cutting him off.  He wasn’t normally the type.  “Some of that footage of Sandra Matthews interviewing Curt got on the news programmes here.  Did you…did you already know that Brian Slade had changed his name and re-entered the music business?  Did you know that when we were talking about him before?”

            “Yes, I knew,” Arthur admitted, with a slight laugh.  “But how could I have said so?”

            “Did you also know his new identity?”

            “Yes, I did.”

            There was a moment of silence.  Or static masquerading as silence, at any rate.  “I asked the Venus in Furs about it,” Malcolm said, his words strangely halting, “and they all said without hesitation that he’d become Tommy Stone.  That isn’t true, is it?”

            “It is,” Arthur sighed.  “Rather wish it wasn’t.”

            “Bloody hell.”  Another silence, more brief.  “How did they know?  How did _you_ know?”

            Arthur chuckled.  “I’m sure they knew as soon as they saw footage of him with his manager.  She was part of Brian’s entourage, and deeply devoted to him.  That’s how I figured it out as well.”

            “Shite, what an idiot.”

            “Yeah.”  Arthur paused a moment, nibbling on one lip uncertainly.  “Malcolm, you haven’t actually signed any contracts about remodelin’ the club yet, have you?”

            “No, we’re still trying to compare prices.  Why?”

            “Well…we’re hopin’ that Curt’s interview finally managed to defeat that movie.  So they might not be getting the money they’re expectin’.”

            “Trevor said their barrister arranged the deal so that they’ll get paid even if the movie is never filmed,” Malcolm replied.  “No need to worry.”

            “That only makes me more worried.”

            Malcolm just found that funny.  When Arthur told Curt about it later, _he_ thought it was funny, too.  That was while they were watching the evening news, and it led into a tiny bit of a spat.  After all, why should it be funny that Arthur was concerned by how irresponsible his friends could be?

            The spat was quickly forgotten as the national news started up, because the top story on that network was their exclusive on the new identity of Brian Slade.  Arthur had expected that someone had done the same thing he had done—the same thing the Venus in Furs had done—and noticed the obvious clue that was Shannon Hazelbourne.

            Admittedly, that had still probably been part of it, but it wasn’t anyone at the network—or in America at all—who had done it.

            Instead, they had been given—or more likely, bought very dearly—an exclusive interview with Jerry Devine.  Arthur suspected the actual interview was much longer, and had mostly focused on denying everything that Curt had said about him and his script.  But the only part that made it onto the American news programme was the part where Devine told the world that Brian Slade was now Tommy Stone.

            The entertainment section of the next morning’s papers made it clear _why_ Devine had once again turned on his former golden goose:  when the movie studio learned that they were going to have to pay massive amounts to Brian and his band, they took it out of Devine’s share of the profits.  Since the screenplay was going to be heavily rewritten to make it less egregious to Brian’s view of the events portrayed, the studio was able to fall back on a loophole in Devine’s contract, taking away his percentage share of the film’s eventual gross, and quartering his up-front writing fee.

            Exposing Brian’s secret became Jerry Devine’s vengeance.

 

***

 

            When his week’s vacation time was over, Arthur was a bit reluctant to return to the office.  There had, after all, been considerable continued coverage of his relationship with Curt, so no one was going to have forgotten.  He tried to tell himself that it had only been the novelty of it that had made it so entertaining to everyone, and that now that they were used to the idea, surely they wouldn’t feel the need to laugh every time they saw him.  No matter how much he told himself that, though, he had trouble believing it.

            Still, whether he wanted to go or not, it had to happen.  Both to work and back to his own flat.  The longer he stayed here, the more risk he ran of alienating Curt.  They had already had a number of little spats, after all; how much worse might it get if they continued trying to live under the same roof?

            So, somewhat reluctantly, Arthur picked up his overnight bag and went into the closet, where his things were hanging alongside Curt’s.  The realization once again struck him how similar in size Curt’s closet was to his whole flat.

            Curt followed him into the closet, and looked at him, a scowl on the face that was half hidden by his unkempt hair.  “What are you doing?  You’re not _leaving_.”  Not a question.  A statement.

            Arthur sighed, trying to find the right way to respond.  “What would you ‘ave me do, Curt?  We ‘aven’t been together very long.  Movin’ in would be…premature.”  _To say the least._

            “I was just getting used to you being here,” Curt replied, almost in a whine.

            “Curt…”  _Don’t make this harder than it already is, for pity’s sake!_

            “If you leave now, the vultures might notice and start filling the tabloids with stories that we’ve broken up.”

            “A few public dates will clear that up,” Arthur chuckled.  “They love printin’ pictures of you with other men, right?”

            “Yeah, but…”  Curt stood there in silence for a minute or two, then took hold of Arthur’s hands and the bag in them.  “Just tonight, okay?  Stay here tonight, at least.”

            _It’s a bad idea.  I shouldn’t stay._

            Looking into Curt’s eyes, wide and intense, Arthur’s pulse quickened.  “All right,” he said.  “Just for tonight.”  He smiled, letting Curt take the bag out of his hands.  “I’ll be late, though.  I need to go back to my flat at least to get my mail.”

            “I’ll order something to arrive at eight for dinner,” Curt suggested.

            “Sure.  I’ll call if I’ll be later than that.”

            Something about kissing Curt on his way out the door to work felt distressingly domestic…

            …and yet it also felt supremely _right._

 

***

 

            When Arthur arrived at the _Herald_ office, people mostly treated him like usual.  Mostly.  When Lionel asked Arthur if he had a nice vacation, he did so with a straight face.  But the question made Murray snicker behind his hand.

            Arthur was thrust right back into election coverage, starting with a brief piece on Reynolds’s most recent publicity decisions, the latest being to drop Tommy Stone like a burning brand.  He was in the middle of culling the important details out of a half dozen Reuters stories when Mary came over to his desk.  At first, he thought she was there for the water cooler, and ignored her, until he realized there was no one else there for her to be talking to.

            “I’m sorry,” he said, turning to look at her, “I was concentrating and missed some of that.”

            “I said, you might want to drag that backside out of your chair and into the break room,” Mary told him, sounding a bit annoyed.

            “Is something goin’ on?”

            “On the television, yes.”

            “What?”

            “Your boyfriend’s ex,” Mary laughed.

            _Brian is…?_   Arthur started out of his chair with a speed that alarmed him, and amused his co-worker.  Whatever was going on, it couldn’t be worth too much excitement, he reminded himself, and forced himself to walk at a slow, reasonable pace.  Inside the smoky break room was the only television in the entire _Herald_ office, and it was currently showing a morning chat programme.  And there, sitting in some fake living room somewhere, was Tommy Stone, white suit, pompadour, sequins and all.

            As Arthur entered the break room, Tommy was in the midst of releasing a brutal invective at…someone.  Unclear who without context.  Might have been Curt, might have been Reynolds, maybe even Jerry Devine.

            “Mr. Stone, if you could calm yourself a bit…” the show’s host said weakly.

            “How am I supposed to remain calm when I’ve lost work and my position of preference over an outright _fabrication_?” Tommy countered, in the Tommy Stone voice.  “Yes, it is true my manager once worked for Brian Slade, but how in the name of good God does that make _me_ into _him_?  I’m an _American,_ for Pete’s sake!”

            “Well, I—”  The host suddenly stopped, looking directly at the camera.  “Oh…I…”  He smiled uncomfortably, then looked at Tommy.  “I’m being told we have someone on the phone who wants to talk to you,” he explained, gesturing in front of him.  _A cue card?  This is goin’ on live?_   “He says he’s a colleague of yours.  A fellow singer.”

            “Calling to defend my honour, I expect,” Tommy said, his calm demeanour of smarm returning.

            There was a click and a hiss of static.  “Give it up, you hypocritical motherfucker!” Curt’s voice shouted.  Tommy’s face turned purple, and his expression leapt to such a bulging-eyed rage that Arthur had to fight not to break out into hysterical laughter.

            “This was all _your_ doing, you bloody wanker!” Tommy shouted at the air.  In Brian Slade’s voice.  “When are _you_ going to give up?!”

            “You’re the f**ker who hired a PI to tail me and take dirty pictures!” Curt replied, with a harsh laugh.  _They must be used to going on live if they’ve got someone handy to bleep things out._   “You’re just so f**king wrapped up in yourself that you can’t stand the idea that people can still go on living without you around!”

            “What _people_?” Tommy demanded.  “You’re nothing but a bloody animal!”

            Curt’s laughter echoed across the living room set.  “If I’m an animal, what’s that make _you_?”

            For a moment, Tommy looked perplexed by that.  But even as Mary—standing beside Arthur—started laughing, Tommy’s expression changed to one of horror and outrage as he understood Curt’s meaning.  Or perhaps he was just reacting to the laughter of the audience that was apparently surrounding the living room set.

            “This time,” Curt’s voice went on before Tommy could put together any kind of reply, “when you watch from the sidelines of obscurity and see me rising up again, try and remember that it’s your own fault.”

            “What sort of nonsense are you spouting?” Tommy asked, glaring up at _something_.  Possibly the speakers from which Curt’s voice was emanating.  Arthur thought he could hear a commotion from off-screen, but he wasn’t sure.  “When has your career ever risen at all?”

            “Hey, you’re the one who approached me ‘cause you were such a big fan,” Curt reminded him, with a laugh.  “But think about what happened after Jerry exposed your last stupid stunt.  Your fans all turned on you and your sales plummeted.  Meanwhile _I_ released the best selling record of my career.”

            “That had nothing to do with _your_ career,” Tommy sneered, even as Shannon Hazelbourne stormed onto the set, with several men chasing after her, trying to stop her.  “That record sold so well because of Jack Fairy.”

            “Yeah, so?  It was still my album, too.  And I wrote more of the songs than he did.  It was a real high point in my career, and you were having to watch it through a cocaine haze in a deserted old—”

            “Shut it off!” Shannon shouted, her voice so loud that it actually drowned out Curt’s.  “Shut it off this instant!” she repeated, advancing threateningly on the show’s host.

            As Tommy Stone began to bellow something, the television suddenly began displaying static, and then a test pattern, which was quickly replaced with a graphic apologising for the ‘technical difficulties’ they were experiencing.

            “Who was that?” Mary asked, looking at Arthur.

            “Shannon?  She’s Tommy Stone’s manager.  And the only person who knew him as Brian Slade that can still tolerate bein’ near him.”

            Mary shook her head.  “So the one who called in, that was your boyfriend?”

            Arthur nodded, hoping he wasn’t blushing.

            “Bit of a dirty mouth on him, isn’t there?”

            “You have no idea,” Arthur sighed.

            Mary chuckled.  “I’ve seen the pictures,” she commented.  “He’s a handsome fellow, but every time I see him, I want to reach into the photo and comb his hair.”

            Arthur laughed.  “It’s usually a bit more controlled when he’s not under public scrutiny.”

            Much to Arthur’s surprise, he found himself being asked a number of other questions about Curt, and about their relationship.  Starting, of course, with the typical ‘were you always gay’ question that was apparently a legal requirement for anyone who discovered that an acquaintance was in a same-sex relationship.  The most surprising part, though, was the fact that Mary really didn’t seem to be patronising him.  She actually might be accepting him for who and what he was, without judging him.

            Maybe there really was hope that his normal life could more or less continue?


	19. Chapter 19

            Arthur was quite tired by the time he got back to his building, and if he had had any of his clothes with him, he would have been tempted to call Curt and cancel, pleading exhaustion.

            At least, he would have been before he got inside the front hall and saw that someone had wrenched his letter box open.  It was filled with papers, some folded, some wadded, some rolled.  Pulling out a few, Arthur saw that every single one was covered with scrawled homophobic epithets and threats.  The door to his flat was similarly covered in graffiti and taped-up insults.  More papers had been slipped under his door.

            The people at work had come to some kind of acceptance, if not understanding, but clearly the people in his building had a long way to go before that would be the case.

            Miserably, Arthur picked up the phone and called Curt, explaining what he had found when he got back.  “So you’re coming back right now, yeah?” Curt surmised.

            “No, I…if I’m stayin’ with you a while longer, I’ll need my computer,” Arthur explained.  “I’ll need to call a cab, or—”

            “You just hold tight there,” Curt said.  “There’s a group of guys that live downstairs.  I’m sure at least one of them’s home, and they’ve got a car.  So we’ll come get you and help you carry anything you need outta there.”

            “Y-you don’t have to go to that kind of trouble…”

            “Of course I do!  If I let you call a cab, who knows what’d happen.  You just wait there.”

            “Yeah…okay…”

            Even though Arthur felt helpless as a child, he couldn’t help smiling while hanging up the phone.  How could he not be happy that the man he loved was so worried about him?

 

***

 

            By the end of the first month after Tommy Stone’s secret was revealed, his fans weren’t entirely sure what to make of the fact that he used to have another career under another name.  Brian Slade’s fans, however, knew exactly what to make of it:  they were horrified at what Brian had become, and the hate that had poured out towards him ten years ago was repeated, albeit at a smaller scale, since so many of his fans had never forgiven him in the first place.

            Between the new hatred of Brian Slade, the loss of Zac Sessions and all the other actors who had been contemplating signing on for the picture, and the general acceptance Curt was now finding among about half the movie-going audience, the studio already wanted to cancel the picture by the time two months had passed.  And yet they didn’t.  Hollywood insiders speculated that it was probably because of the huge sum they had already been forced to pay to Brian and the Venus in Furs, but that it might also have been an attempt to cash in on the newly revived interest in Curt.  However, Curt’s plea had worked, and no established actor was willing to come near the picture, so it was slated to star entirely unknown actors, and probably not very good ones at that.

            By the time he had been living with Curt for five months, Arthur had come to realize that the book he had set out to write was a truly massive undertaking—especially since it had evolved somewhat in that it now encompassed a proper history as well as an assessment of how people reflected on that age so recent and yet so distant—and that it would probably take him years just to collect all the data, let alone write the book.

            Still, he did manage to finish up an article for _Rolling Stone_ that featured the highlights of the interviews with the three giants:  Brian Slade, Curt Wild and Jack Fairy, with their associated bands.  The same day that Arthur sent off the rough draft of the article to _Rolling Stone_ , he went in to see his editor at the _Herald_.

            “Lou?” he started, after handing in his draft for a piece on the election.  “There’s something important I needed to ask you.”

            “What is it?”

            “There’s this friend of mine, back in London?  He owns a club, and he’s remodellin’ it, and he was hopin’ that Curt would come perform at the reopening, and…well, we’ve both got a lot of friends to visit there, so…I was hopin’ I could get a few more days of vacation time.  I hadn’t counted how many days I had left when we made the reservations.  We booked for me to be gone a week, but I only have five days of vacation, so—”

            “I tell you what,” Lou said, cutting him off.  “You find a few stories to write up while you’re there, and we’ll call it even.”

 

***

 

            The issue of _Rolling Stone_ with Arthur’s article in it arrived just in time to be packed in his suitcase along with everything else for their return visit to London.  It was the same issue that had a report on the filming of the movie that had paid for the refurbishment of Malcolm’s club.

            “Are they gonna meet us at Heathrow, or are we taking a cab?” Curt asked, as he struggled to close his own suitcase.

            “Malcolm said someone would be waitin’ for us,” Arthur replied, wondering idly if he should offer to help with the suitcase, or if that would trigger Curt’s ‘act macho’ defense mechanism.  “What about the Sea Phantoms?  They’re meetin’ us at the airport?”

            “Yeah.”  Curt finally jammed the suitcase shut, and hastily latched it so it couldn’t pop open again.  Not easily, anyway.

            “And you know what songs you’re performin’?”

            “Hey, I’m an old pro at this!  Don’t waste my time with questions like that!”

            Arthur chuckled.  “Sorry.”

            “There’s only one question left in _my_ mind,” Curt went on, moving over to him.

            “What’s that?”

            “When Malcolm was re-doing the club, did he think to leave a nice little spot on the roof where we can go to…reminisce after the show?”

            Arthur smiled.  “I’m sure he did, love.”


End file.
